


Roses on the Devil's Back

by xXBeckyFoo



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 07:38:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 85,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5408474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xXBeckyFoo/pseuds/xXBeckyFoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It really had nothing to do with him taking her virginity, Kate just hates Seth for abandoning her on a lonely Mexican road. He knows that, too. He's willing to deal with her backlash when a prophecy forces them back together six years later — he just wasn't ready to meet their daughter in the process.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Loss

**Author's Note:**

  * For [imaginedfables](https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginedfables/gifts).



> Ah! Right. So this is my first real attempt at the FDTD series. I'm nervous.  
> Also, I'd like to say that this was very much inspired by the amazing "Carry The Ghost" by Imaginedfables. What a talented writer this person is. Hands down.

As the preacher’s daughter Kate was not allowed to cast the first stone — even if her mama had taught her right from wrong, even if her daddy made her live a life true to the sacred scripture. That’s why when Brittany, her best friend, lost her virginity to Asher, a high school senior and quarterback, behind the bleachers after winning the homecoming game, Kate bit down on her tongue. She held back her disappointment and lectures of promised celibacy to the church when they were thirteen, and instead gasped and offered an ear like any good friend would. As such, Kate heard how it started as an innocent kiss that led to a hand under her shirt, and that led to her skirt being hiked up to her waist while Asher pressed into her, breaking past her barriers to make Brittany a woman.

“Did it hurt?” asked Kate curiously when Brittany said Asher made her feel _full_.

Brittany rolled her eyes as a response. Of course it had hurt, but she was alive, so it wasn’t like she had taken a bullet and had to get it out with rusty scissors; it was a tolerable pain. She reached for a freshly baked cookie Mrs. Fuller brought up alongside glasses of warm milk when Kate had asked permission for a sleepover.

“He said it gets better next time.”

“Next time?” returned Kate, unknowingly sounding uncertain that was the best choice her friend should make.

Brittany used Kate’s pink stuffed animal (a floppy bunny by the name of Sir Hopsalot) to hit her over the head with. “There’s no turning back now, Katie. Besides, I _want_ to have sex again. I think it will feel better next time—and last longer, too. It was Asher’s first time, too, you know. He was excited. And before he.... _you know_ , at the end, it started to feel good.”

Kate hummed in response before taking a sip of her milk, feeling slightly awkward. She was not used to this sort of talk. She and Brittany had a brief conversation about these things last summer when Georgia Smith, their friend that lived down the block, was caught with a bag of condoms and Pastor Fuller had been called to the Smith home to pray for her soul. Instead of gossiping, Brittany and Kate wondered how their first times would be. It led to shared expectations and dreams for the momentous occasion.

“It’ll happen with you and Kyle Winthrope,” said Brittany, wiggling her brows as Kate turned bright pink, coughing. “I’ve seen you two flirting at church for a month now.”

“We’re just friends.” Kate knew it was somewhat of a lie, and if there was anyone she could talk about her crush it'd be with Brittany. Still, she cleared her throat and added, “Besides, I made a promise to keep myself pure until marriage.”

“Kate,” Brittany groaned, dragging out the world, “sex is not a sin.”

“It should be if your first time is behind some bleachers.”

“Maybe,” Brittany laughed, unbothered by the dig, “but it’s not like we had a free bed. You have to improvise sometimes.”

“I don’t want to improvise the first time I have sex,” whispered Kate when she heard her parents in the hallway outside her bedroom, heading to their own. When she heard their door close, she took a deep sigh of relief. Her daddy would not have tolerated such talk in his home. “I want it to be beautiful and sacred. I want it to _mean_ something.”

Fast forward three years later and Kate will declare herself a downright liar. If she could, if she even had the possibility, she would call Brittany and confess that her behind-the-bleachers sex was far less condemnable than how Kate lost _her_ virginity.

The day started without signs of her losing her innocence—at least not in that way.

Kate woke up tangled in sheets, a thin glaze of sweat on her skin, and the morning light pouring in orange through the open window. For a brief, delusional moment her mind tricked her into believing she was back in her own bedroom, back in Bethal, wrapped in clean, pink sheets, and God was blessing her with another beautiful day of grace. But the cocking of a gun at the corner of the room caused by a sleep-deprived, drunk criminal brought her back to reality. She was not home. She was stuck in a grimy, questionable motel—one of many over the course of seven months—with the infamous Seth Gecko.

“Morning, princess,” he said to her, voice thick with his usual snark while his dark gaze scanned her over as she stood from the bed, kicking off itchy sheets and rubbing away the excess sleep from her eyes. He did that ever so often, watching her intently. It happened after he learned to curb his addiction (for the month, at least). It was like reality in dream-state was still a blur; he had trouble remembering if she was real. Part of Kate thought he was afraid she would vanish before his eyes if he blinked.

She scoffed at him, reaching for the paper bag on the small table. She pulled out a plate of eggs, hash browns, and pancakes. It made her frown, looking up at him. “What do you want, Gecko?”

Seth put a pause to his gun cleaning. “What’d you mean?”

“You never bring me pancakes unless you want something.”

A glimmer of entertainment past Seth’s sharp features for a quick second. “There’s a club not too far from here—”

“ _No_ ,” hissed Kate immediately, sliding the bribery her breakfast was back in his direction. “You promised me we wouldn’t rob big locations after the bank fiasco last month.”

“Last month was an accident.”

“You don’t accidentally shoot someone, Seth! When we started robbing—when I agreed to all of this—my only condition was for no one to get hurt!”

“And no one has gotten hurt up until this point, Fuller. That motherfucker had it come, and you goddamn know it,” his voice grew louder, penetrating the walls with his deep baritone. “He fucking took a jab at you—or do you not remember your three broken ribs? I had to do what I had to do. Simple as that.”

Kate gritted her teeth to keep herself from yelling.

Her life was a twisted, unfathomable mess. She had been willingly trapped in Mexico for months with the man that kidnapped her. If her Stockholm Syndrome was not bad enough, she had started to _understand_ his violent, destructive streaks and why they were sometimes necessary. Even if her morality told her there was nothing honorable about Seth, she knew his most terrible moments in their time together stemmed from him protecting her (and the rest was caused by his broken, grieving heart).

Ever since they left the Titty Twister there was an unspoken rule that they would never leave one another. They absolutely hated each other, that was undisputable, but they were also all they had. There was nothing back home for her, and Seth didn’t even have a home to mourn. Not to mention the money they stole from their petty gigs was hardly enough to promise them an individual bright, shiny future. When you had absolutely nothing but the breath in your chest and a partner beside you, a link grows with or without your consent. And that’s exactly what Seth Gecko and Kate Fuller were, _partners_. Even if they each were the last person on earth they had wanted to end up with, they had key components the other needed. It’s what kept them alive all these months. It’s what kept them _sane_ in a world infested with gods and monsters.

Seth slowly slid back the plate to her. “We’re running low on funds,” he reminded. “Motels, weapons, and food don’t come cheap. And if you ever want to get to the beach for our next stop, we need this.”

It took a full minute before she released a sigh of defeat. “Fine,” she conceded, sitting at their crappy table and opening her meal, “but we _are_ going to the beach next move, Gecko. You’re not cheating me out of that again, got it? And no one,” she warned with a pointed finger, “and I mean _no one_ gets hurt.”

Seth grinned at her threat, returning to clean his gun. “It’ll be a piece of cake, princess.”

Never trust a fucking Gecko. _Ever._ Whenever they promised something, it was void from the start. There was never any intent from their part to keep true to their word. That was how Kate ended stumbling back into their motel room, lugging a wounded Seth with her.

With the physical strength granted to her by the fury and rush of adrenaline still pumping in her bloodstream, she managed to push him down onto an old chair. He groaned when his shoulder hit the back of it. Kate moved for the first aid kit that came with the room, snatching the two whiskey bottles Seth had left on the nightstand.

Her hands were painted red. It was a sight not uncommon for Kate in this life of slaying vampires, but it was never hers or Seth’s blood. Now it was all his. It burned her. It made something inside of her chest freeze and shatter. A reminder of so many things, both old and new.

She opened one of the whiskey bottles and drank back a giant gulp. She was heaving, Seth watching through his lashes, gritting his teeth from the bullet wound. She didn’t meet his eye when she carefully removed the shirt from his body. Once the exposed damage was facing her, Kate’s fingers tightened around the bottle. She was inclined to walk out and the drink the rest of her miserable night away. In the end she decided to pour the alcohol onto his wound, hearing him hiss and watching him squirm; she gave him the second bottle so the liquid could numb him before reaching for the scissors and knife she had set out on the table beside the first aid kit.

The job was running smoothly. Kate and Seth had gotten in the club without raising suspicion—mostly because the three guards were entirely hooked on Kate in a tight, hip-hugging black dress, flashing that sweet, innocent smile that enchanted every man with a black heart wanting to corrupt anything with light. They had gotten as far as getting their bags filled with whatever the club had scored in a day’s business, but getting to the other side of the exit had been interrupted when a shot was fired at Kate. She dodged it right on time, but Seth had not forgiven the intention.

After what seemed like an eternity (but was really two minutes) of gunshots, fist fighting, and (surprise, surprise) random culebras, the end came with sirens in the distance and Seth falling to his knees after a bullet made way into his shoulder. Kate had killed culebras time and time again, but that had been the first time she picked up her gun and shot at a man. She put five bullets into his chest until his gun fell. She didn’t spare the man a glance as she helped Seth out of the bar.

“It’s not as worse as it looks,” he attempted to assure her despite his clear look of pain when she managed to pull out the bullet and sew up the small hole it had left in his flesh. Kate momentarily turned away from him, silent. “Come on, princess. At least we got the money.”

She felt the sting before her hand collided with his cheek. “Money doesn’t matter!” she yelled. “You could’ve died tonight, do you even see that? It could’ve been your head instead of your shoulder!”

“But it wasn’t,” he growled back, standing to his full height, towering over her.

She was not intimidated. Not anymore. In the beginning he knew exactly how to scare her, how to get her to close her mouth, pout, and glare out the window. But now she knew much more about him than she would like; as such, she knew what he was capable of and what he was not. His looking down at her was as far as he would go to overpower her.

“What would have I done, then, Gecko?” she returned without lessening her anger. “What the hell would be the purpose to anything after that?”

“It’d give you the exit you always wanted,” he said without missing a beat, accusing her of thoughts he was sure she kept to herself.

Maybe it was the fury boiling in her veins that clouded her mind in vibrant shades of red. Maybe it was her frustration that never failed in making her act without thinking that finally became her downfall. Maybe it was her trying to prove that she was cursed with him and leaving him had never been in the cards. Or maybe it was her hidden, shameful desires finally coming out at the wrong place and time.

Whatever it was, Kate used her strength to push Seth back onto the chair, bending to his height to take his lips hostage, gripping the back of his hair. He was startled (to say the least), but recovered quickly.

As much of a bastard as he was, he was not a fucking bastard; he pushed her off, eyes wide, confused. But Kate had other plans that did not require his conscience to make a rare appearance. Her fingers reached the hem of her dress, slowly peeling it off her body. She threw it at his feet.

“Kate,” he murmured. She could have laughed at the underline of fear in his voice that contrasted with the dark, burning longing in his eyes.

Maybe it was that in seven months he had steered clear (and had no time) from women and the carnal activities that transpired between two humans. Maybe it was the bullet that had missed her by an inch and made him terrified of thinking about a life without her. Maybe it was how his own anger obscured his judgement. Maybe it was that he could no longer hide his secret, unwanted need for her that was now being fed and forced to come alive.

Whatever it was, Seth put his hands on her waist to pull her in.

There was nothing beautiful about the way Kate lost her virginity. When she once had dreamt of being stripped out of her beautiful, white wedding dress, a dirty, grimy black dress had been removed, leaving her in mismatched bra and panties. When she once had dreamt of a hotel room overlooking paradise, she got a rundown motel at the side of a lonely Mexican dirt road. When she once dreamt of feeling bliss, all she got was anger, hatred, and fear drowning her inside out. And although she had known there would be blood, she didn’t think majority of it would come from the man she gave herself to.

She purposely pressed the other side of his wound. He growled, biting into her neck just as viciously. Every movement was like that, deliciously cruel. She scraped her nails down his back and he pulled on her hair. His fingers moved sinfully in tune with his pumping and she held him inside of her, squeezing, making him groan. Her teeth tugged at his bottom lip and his tongue mercilessly teased her breasts. He pushed into her with zealous and she moved her hips in painfully slow circles.

They were at war with bodies intertwined.

Still, there was a glimmer of undiluted affection in their eyes that was never spoken of. They hated each other from the first day of this screwed up union, but they also irrevocably loved— _needed_ —each other (even if they never acknowledged it aloud).

It was no surprise, then, that Kate climbed down from gritty pleasure with Seth’s arms wrapped around her, both closing their eyes and drifting off to blank dreams. All she didn’t count on when she woke up was for her bag to be packed, stack of cash and gun ready, while he screamed at her to leave and never come back.


	2. Shattered Looking Glass

_I'm not gonna cry. I'm not gonna cry. I'm not gonna cry._

She did not immediately leave the dingy town. Her mind could not process the way he threw her clothes at her, the way he looked ready to kill, or the way he had gripped her arm, shoving her out the door. Nothing had left her mouth, not a protest or a curse—not even when he slammed the door on her face.

She made it to a rundown dive bar about a mile from the motel. It was the sort of place that hosted sketchy people (the sort that hid out in questionable motels on lonely dirt roads, _ahem_ ), but the owners regulated any suspicious activity so their establishment remained respectable (-ish). So instead of having a burly, disgusting man clad in leather breathing down her neck, she was undisturbed on a corner stool, sipping on a coke. She frequently glanced at the stool beside her, frowning at the bag that had been packed without her knowledge like it could make sense of everything and explain it to her.

When nothing came, a spark of anger finally flared up into wildfire in her chest. She needed an explanation—and she damn well will get one. This had nothing to do with a terrible man breaking past her precious innocence one night and disregarding it the next; this was all about getting pushed to the curb by a damn Gecko. One that was supposed to be her partner. One who promised (not directly, mind you, because he didn’t do mushy, but had freaking _implied it_ during those months of Bonnie and Clyde adventures) he would not leave her.

But he did.

When she made it back to their motel room, determined to aim her first to his nose, or reopen his current wound just so she had the pleasure of watching him grit his teeth when she had to stitch him back up, he was not there. The room was empty. Everything they had brought with them (which had not been much, but things they considered theirs that they acquired in their time together) was gone. All that proved he had been there was the shattered whiskey bottle over the headboard of the dirty bed.

_I'm not gonna cry. I'm not gonna cry. I'm not gonna cry._

Kate eventually left town that night. She hot-wired a car from the parking lot, threw her bag on the passenger side, and drove for miles. With the moon as her only companion, she headed to nowhere in particular. That was the thing about being lost, after all, anywhere became the right destination.

She stopped at a gas station when the lovely, silvery moon had been replaced with the birth of a new sun. She bathed in the first rays of warm light until the rumbling of her stomach forced her into the store, purchasing a handful of necessities before filling up the tank. She was gone by the time another car pulled up.

Although she had been born to a stable environment, Kate was a flight risk. She often retreated into herself, hiding her face behind her long, auburn hair, or pushed her earphones in, playing loud music until the world was sound out. When that did not work, when hiding within herself did not give her the escape she needed, she ran.

The first time was when her parents brought Scott home. They had attempted to prepare her for his eventual arrival months before: she helped them pick out the color scheme of his new room, the trinkets that would fill it, they let her kiss his picture good night, and pray for him before her own eyes closed. Yet, when Kate saw him glued to her mama’s hand, jealousy made her see red.  She did not want Scott to be there with them, not with his weird name, his poor English skills, and the obvious difference he brought to the Fuller family. When her parents did not understand why she desperately needed them to return Scott after two weeks, when her daddy made her ask God for forgiveness for such thought, she snuck out, determined to never return.

She had not made it far, but to her, the park two streets over was in another solar system. When night hit she was afraid of the rustling of leaves, the wind forcing the swings to creak, rain falling heavy and cold on her, and the shadows walking down the street. She had burst into tears. She knew where she was, but she was lost. Terrified. She prayed and prayed for God to send her an angel to rescue her from the nightmare. And he did. A knight on a shiny tricycle. _Scott._

That was the thing about her brother, he found her every time she ran.

Now Kate was lost again, alone, afraid of the shadows, and he was not coming to save her.

_I'm not gonna cry. I'm not gonna cry. I'm not gonna cry._

The money Seth left her lasted a month (after she had stretched every bill and coin). She knew she had to eventually stop driving. 

She ended up in Sonora, Mexico.

She spent her last pesos on chicken enchiladas in a small, colorful diner in the center of a very crowded neighborhood. She sat alone, silently contemplating if stealing was her only option for quick cash. Her morality reprimanded her for even toying with the idea, but being a criminal was a career she had picked up and had been on the fast track of becoming a certified professional in.

“ _Estás bien, cariño?_ ” Kate looked up to see a woman with salt-and-pepper hair and tender hazel eyes refilling her glass with ice water.

Despite all that time in Mexico (and those years in high school) forcing her to learn Spanish, she understood it better than she could speak it. As such, she chose simply to nod back at the woman, bringing her hands down onto her lap to fiddle with her fingers. Strangers had often approached her whenever she stayed too long in one spot, but the genuine softness of the woman rattled her.

“ _Estas sola?_ ” asked the woman. When she got another nod, she took the open seat across from Kate. “You remind me of someone, _sabes_.”

Kate had not been too sure why her voice came out so small, defeated. “Who?”

“Me. I’m Gloria,” said the woman with a small smile. It was friendly, but there was something like sadness glittering in her eyes, too. “Do you want to tell me what’s wrong, _m’hija_?”

“No.”

“Of course not. I said that, too, when they asked me. I was twenty and had just left my abusive first husband—escaped him is the better way to put it. _Por favor_ , tell me that’s not your case. Tell me there’s not a _cabron_ out there looking for you. You’ll be surprised how many girls running from evil men pass through here.”

“No one’s looking for me,” returned Kate, finally meeting the woman’s gaze. “I have no one.”

Gloria reached a hand across the table, offering it. It took Kate a long second before bringing her left hand from hiding to place over Gloria’s. “No one’s ever really alone. God is always with us.”

A part of Kate that was resentful, that was angry, forced a loud scoff to leave her lips.

“It’s okay to question. God doesn’t judge you for that,” added Gloria. “When I was in that very same seat, Lupe, the original owner, offered me a helping hand while the other held the bible. I was surrounded by cruelty for so long, I didn’t know how to believe good people existed. So I told her to mind her own business, to keep her saints and false prophets, and left. She found me starving on the streets a week later. Now—”

“Kate,” she input when Gloria paused, the silent question hanging in the air.

“Kate,” she smiled brighter, “I’m extending the same to you now. I need a waitress. And I hope you’re not as proud as I once was, _amorcito_ , because these cold, dark streets are no place for a girl like you.”

Not entirely unsurprising to herself, Kate did not have to think about it. God (yes, the part that still believed) had sent her a small miracle. She would not have to steal, she would not have to resort to the darkness Seth Gecko tried to make her embrace by calling them survival skills. She was an honest person; if she was going to eat, if she was going to make it on her own, then she would do so respectably.

 _‘There’s an art to thievery, princess,’_ his voice entered her ears, a memory from long ago, _‘and among my colleagues, my work is Da Vinci.’_

“When do I start?”

“As of now.” Gloria squeezed her hand, giving a silent promise of protection her abandoned heart did not want to believe.

_I'm not gonna cry. I'm not gonna cry. I'm not gonna cry._

Two months. That’s all Kate got of peace and normality.

Assimilating to Gloria’s restaurant, La Jolla (the Jewel), had not been as easy as she had originally thought it would. She had been right; once you were used to evil there was no accepting kindness. Not immediately, at least. Although Kate trusted Gloria, guided by the comforting warmth that seeped from the wrinkles on her face and her hazel eyes, she had trouble loosening around the rest of her staff. She would remain quiet when they all laughed, nodded or shook her head when they asked her questions, and squeezed her butterfly knife (that she earned from her first successful hold-up) in her pocket for three weeks before realizing they greeted in hugs and cheek kisses.

Eventually, Kate breathed easier. She learned to smile back, to know her coworkers beyond first names, to speak up, to give parts of her not yet tainted by her past. This led her to accept the available room Maria Luz (a twenty-three year old Med student) graciously offered when Kate mentioned she was staying at a nearby motel; she went dancing to a new club a few towns over with Luke and Mike (Gloria’s grandsons visiting from California for the summer), attended dinner parties at Doña Rosa’s (one of the cooks) house, and loosened her grip on the blade in her pocket. She knew she could never really be normal, not while knowing the world was plagued by real monsters that feasted at night, or the scars marking her heart by a past life that continued to live in nightmares. Still, she pretended.

Then came the day she fainted from her imaginary world and woke up in sharp reality.

Kate was assigned the morning shift on a Sunday (her favorite days to work). She loved seeing families huddle in La Jolla after church service, sharing food, laughter, conversation that illuminated the entire place with love and unity. Kids chased each other, men sang, and women danced. Kate could not get enough of the sight; this culture, these people, was so vibrant and beautiful, she could get lost in it for hours. And they got lost in her, too. The families that were regulars always asked for her as their waitress; adoringly they called Katerina, asked about her well-being, kissed her cheeks, brought her roses, tipped her big, and made her dance and twirl with them on celebratory days.

That was exactly how her morning had been going, until she realized her stomach hurting was not from laughing, her clammy palms were not from the heat, nor the terrible nausea she woke up to that morning was caused by the shrimp tacos Maria Luz picked up from the back of a van the night before.

Gloria sent Kate home with a light pat to her cheek when she recovered consciousness, promising to check in after she closed the restaurant for the evening. As soon as she exited La Jolla, Kate ran to her local pharmacy to pick up more than medicine.

A pink plus sign on a plastic stick changed everything.

_I'm not gonna cry. I'm not gonna cry. I'm not gonna cry._

She stayed in bed for almost a week before she accepted the truth growing inside of her.

Accepting the truth and knowing what to do were two entirely different things, Kate found out when she looked at her naked reflection on a fogged mirror. There was the smallest swell to her abdomen. She stared at it for what felt like hours, afraid to touch it. Afraid that it was real. And it was real. She was pregnant.

Despite everything she had gone through, despite parts of her that were bitter and resentful, she believed in God. She believed in the word her daddy preached back in Bethel. She believed every being deserved the chance at life. But, oh, how naive, how ignorant were those (including her) that defended pro-life laws, that wanted to own and control the rights to a woman’s body. No one had any say. No one got to judge when abortion became the only possible option.

Kate was alone in the world. She had nothing to give. She was broken. She was hiding from reality among people she could never truly be a part of. No matter how much she tried, normality—sanity—was never going to come back to her life. How could she possibly raise a child under such conditions?

“It’s your choice, _hijita_ ,” said Gloria with no opinion swaying between right or wrong. All she cared about was Kate’s well-being, both physically and mentally. “Only you know if you have enough love in your heart to give to that little being inside of you. Only you know if you’re strong enough to give your entire life to someone else.”

God forgive her; Kate settled on abortion.

The morning she was scheduled in for the procedure, Kate took a detour. She had been up earlier than needed, but her mind was fuzzy with emotions all over the spectrum. So she grabbed an ice cream cone, strawberry milk (she thought it was too early in her pregnancy for cravings, but they were hitting her at all hours), and sat at a park bench. She was watching a man paint the landscape when a little boy wandered to the playground, making his way up the slide in the cool unconventional way. Kate knew he was going to fall before he did; still, her breath hitched and she stood from her seat, determined to assist him, when a blonde woman ran up to him. She scooped him up into her arms as he wailed, clutching on to the side of his head that collided with the ground.

“Shh,” soothed the woman gently. “Shhh now, baby. It’s okay. You’re alright, Jacob.”

It hit Kate then and there. She always had the capacity to love someone more than her own life. She always had the capacity to protect someone with tooth and nail. She had learned it from the best man she'd ever known, her daddy.

Her hand rested on the small bump of her stomach.

_I’m not gonna cry. I’m not gonna cry. I’m not gonna cry._

The small town was shaken to the core when reports of a serial killer on the loose had surfaced. Weekly attacks across the city were broadcasted to warn the public; they were getting closer, moving from town to town. Thirteen mutilated bodies had been counted so far. Police urged the people to practice precaution: staying in groups and avoiding the streets past midnight.

Kate was six months pregnant when the monsters came out from the shadows again.

She was closing La Jolla with Gloria when the glass doors of the boutique across them shattered. The loud-pitched screeches brought back memories from an infested temple Kate thought she could forget. She was able to tell them apart from the woman that was being ravaged.

Kate wanted to scream, too, but a hand landed on her mouth, forcing her to swallow it down. Gloria’s eyes were sharp, looking younger and more aware than ever. Something about her reflected a warrior. A _survivor_. Kate understood in that moment why Gloria had reached out all those months back—she had escaped these monsters, too.

“Culebras don’t travel on their own,” she whispered harshly into Kate’s ear after she dragged her away from the lamp post that cast an exposing light on them. The horrendous shrieks continued to sound off in the background. “A nest has settled somewhere near. This place is no longer safe. _Cariño_ , you have to go.”

“Go?” Kate gasped out. “What do you mean go? Gloria, I can’t.”

A set of keys were shoved into her hands. “You have to survive. For your child. Take my car. Drive straight out of town. Don’t go back to your apartment for anything.”

“What about you? I can’t leave you here.”

“I will be fine, _hijita_. I promise you. We all will. You’ll hear from me again. Now _go_.”

So Kate does. She left a world of pretend, driving with the moon overhead, forever her most faithful companion, searching for another town.

The radio became static as she carefully forged new stories in her mind for her next stop. She could be an abandoned mother-to-be. She could be a young widower who discovered three months after her husband’s untimely death that she was with child. She could be a would-be surrogate for a wealthy Mexican couple with fertility issues who decided to keep the child in the end. She could even manipulate Ellen Page’s Juno.

When the sun came out Kate drove off the highway. _No._ She did not want to pretend anymore. She did not want to have to constantly keep up with her lies, to create new details about herself she would start to believe the more she repeated them. She wanted to be herself. She wanted to be Kate, however screwed up that person was. She needed to take a deep breath and let reality have its moment of glory.

She set off to find the one person who could give her that.

It took three days to find him.

Her knuckles rapped gently against the door. She held her breath; half of her wanted no one to be in, yet the other half needed him.

The door opened.

“Kate?” a sigh of relief, deep and genuine.

“Ranger Gonzalez,” she muttered back, tears in her eyes. “I need your help.”

_ I'm not gonna cry. I'm not gonna cry. I'm not gonna cry.  _


	3. What Could Never Be

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really don't know how I'm writing all of this so quickly. Has never happened before.

Kate knew nothing of who Freddie Gonzalez was before the chaos that forced them to cross paths. The version she knew of him was hell bent on getting justice; he was an honorable, brave, God-fearing, loyal man. He could have been something entirely different back home, someone not as honorable, someone deplorable, but that possibility had not distracted Kate from seeking him out. Regardless of the lives lived before, there was something unbreakable that connects two people after surviving a temple of doom.

He must have thought the same because he allowed her into his home, a place that had to be holy ground for someone like him, a ranger with new knowledge of a world infested with demons just outside his porch. He offered her a hot cup of tea and a sandwich; his eyes locked on her as she devoured the food like she had not ate in days.

“Kate,” he whispered to her, something that sounded like guilt. She looked up at him, an eyebrow raising when he added, “I’m sorry I left you.”

The door opened loudly the next second, making Freddie’s hand fly to the handle of his gun resting in his holster. Kate sat up, alert, as she reached for her bag where he own weapon hid. It was only when they heard giggling and the sound of heels against the wooden floor panels that both released their pre-battle reflexes.

A beautiful, kind-looking woman appeared at the entrance of the sitting room with an adorable little girl attached to her hip. She had been in the middle of a sentence when she abruptly stopped, zeroing in on Kate. There was a moment of absolute silence before something in the woman’s eyes washed over in sympathy.

“Is this her?” she asked. “Is this Kate?”

“This is my wife Margaret,” said Freddie to Kate when confusion clouded over her face.

Kate swallowed uneasily. “You...uh, you told her what happened?”

Freddie nodded back slowly, another shade of regret darkening his brown eyes. “And how I left you.” There was another brief pause, then a sigh. “There’s a lot about that temple that keeps me up at night, Kate, and leaving you behind is one of them. I should’ve brought you back to the states, but all I could think about was Margaret and Billie—”

“I didn’t want to come back, Freddie,” Kate told him, stopping him from worsening his guilt. “I had nothing to come back to. My entire family is dead.”

He winced, jaw tightening. “I didn’t hear from you in a year. Some days I was convinced you had died out there and it was my fault because I didn’t do anything to make sure you were at least safe before I left.”

Kate took a deep breath. Although she knew finding Ranger Gonzalez was what she needed to do, confessing to him what she had been up to the seven months after the Twister would not be easy. After all, there were two reasons he had gone to hell in the first place. One being Richard Gecko and the other Seth Gecko.

Still, she had to do it. She had to say it because that was the truth. It was something she could not escape from.

“I left with Seth,” her voice came out small, slightly afraid. “He had just lost Richie, just how I had lost Scott, and we.... _I_ thought going with him was my only choice. So we went deeper into Mexico for seven months, hiding and fighting.”

Freddie listened intently, but Kate did not miss Margaret putting a comforting (restraining) hand on his shoulder. “Where is he now?” he asked sharply.

“Gone,” was all Kate said of the subject. “I was in Sonora these past six months, working at a restaurant, trying to be normal, but culebras started attacking the town. I had to go. And I was going to hide again, but I didn't want to run anymore. I just—”

“We are happy you're here,” said Margaret, surprising Kate by how sincere she sounded. It made tears swim in her eyes.

“I know I have no right to ask you this,” whispered Kate, somehow managing to continue past the knot in her throat, “but right now, more than ever, actually, I need to be with people I trust. And if you turn me away, if...if for the sake of your family you can’t help me, then I’ll go and I won't hold it against you.”

“What’s wrong? Are you sick?” Margaret asked, motherly concern flashing in her bright eyes.

Winter hit Mexico with frosty winds, hailing rain, and grey skies when Kate had crossed the border; she was dressed for it, too. She had not taken off the large, heavy parka even when that Texan heat poured into the stolen car she drove. Now she stood, unzipping it to expose her six month bump.

They let Kate stay in their guest bedroom.

She thought it would be difficult to assimilate living under the same roof as a family. For so long it had been her and one other person. There had been Seth, of course; Seth, who in the first three weeks hardly spoke a word to her, who only grunted and scoffed as responses when she asked him something, or cursed at her when giving commands. It was only after a near death experience with a stray culebra (back when they made a stint in Guadalajara) that he finally breathed around her. Small talk transitioned to civil conversations — that led to fights, crying (from Kate, _once_ ), drunk whispered secrets, and banter. But that was how living with Seth was, a constant roller coaster. He was down and then high (pun intended) so often Kate never knew which version of him she was going to get. Then there was Maria Luz. Sweet Maria Luz who studied really hard at university during mornings to become a doctor and at nights served food in La Jolla. She was hardly ever awake when Kate saw her back in their little apartment. It was like living alone with the ghost of a woman who often left her purse and shoes discarded in different places around their home.But the Gonzalez family made it easy for her to adjust to a busy, loud, cramped space again.

Margaret was especially attentive; she would offer to make Kate as comfortable as possible in whatever she needed. Even if that meant preparing an array of food or helping her with daily things so long as she wasn’t exhausted.

“I remember when I was pregnant with Billie,” said Margaret when she and Kate were sat on the couch watching a Disney film with the little girl, each with an individual carton of ice cream in their laps despite the cold weather outside. “I couldn’t even walk around the house without getting winded. Freddie thought getting me a bell would be a good idea.” She let out a giant laugh. “That backfired on him. Billie wanted everything and she wanted it in that second. She gets that from her father, I suppose, so he can’t complain.”

“So long as mine isn’t craving whiskey and heroin, I’m happy to eat all the ice cream it wants,” Kate returned, making Margaret blink back in bewilderment.  

Despite opening his home to her, Kate thought it would take Freddie the longest to adjust to having her around. Whatever his wife knew and imagined about the Twister would never compare to living through it. If Kate could hardly look at her own reflection without thinking back to those horrible memories, how would she and Freddie manage to even breathe living in the same place? _Strength_ —that’s how. Strength as a unit was what made it bearable. While both of them were trying so hard to forget it, once they had crossed paths again they realized it was impossible. It was a part of them now. It was _who_ they were now. Yeah, sometimes when silence rang Freddie and Kate would look at one another, flashbacks of the Twister gripping them both, torturing them, making them insane, but one of them would blink and bring them back to the present. They had survived. They just had to learn to stop feeling guilty they had.

He adopted somewhat of a fatherly role. Kate was certain a part of him was so inclined to protect her, to be there for her, because he left her back at the Twister. She had never thought of it as betrayal—as cowardly—and told him as such. Still, he was a stubborn one. But he did it from the heart. If he arrived from the station before all the women were asleep, he would check outside her window (even though the entire house was barred tight) to make sure nothing lurked in the shadows; or when he missed them after coming home past midnight, he was sure to linger in the morning for a few minutes to talk to her, to make sure she was okay (even if it made him late, even if she gave him the same _‘I’m fine, Freddie’_ a thousand times).

And Billie? Well, it was like having a little sister. Whenever she caught herself thinking just that, Kate’s heart felt like it was breaking all over again, thinking back to Scott and how she left him at the Twister. She had to force herself to steady her breathing and push the memory away. She focused on Billie providing Kate with motherhood experience. She babysat for Freddie and Margaret when both were working or they desperately needed a date night. She learned a lot from that—especially how terrified she was of the impending arrival of her own child.

The last trimester of her pregnancy was hardly a breeze. The baby was healthy, that was as much as the doctor had said when Kate went in for ultrasounds (often with Margaret and Billie in tow). Kate was another issue entirely. Her body was weakened by the pregnancy. It made her far more fatigued than average; she lost weight when she was supposed to gain it, spotted her underwear three times (leading her to almost have a heart attack each time), got unbearable cramps, and her bones hurt.

“Your child is fine. It is receiving all the nutrients it’s supposed to get, has all organs and fingers,” said Doctor Chavez, Kate’s gynecologist. “It’s just your body that’s not handling it well. It’s almost like it is rejecting the baby.”

When Kate got really ill at seven months Doctor Chavez suggested an induced labor. The health complications were too extreme to let the pregnancy continue to the natural time set. There were risks for Kate, yes, that had been made clear, but she heard nothing beyond the fact that her baby could also face backlash if they induced labor. Premature births were handled better in that day and age than ever before, but nothing was guaranteed. Kate would not risk that. So she spent the next two months bed ridden, ill, in tears, but cradling her stomach to give her strength.

Freddie nor Margaret asked who the father was during her pregnancy. Kate assumed it was them being polite, but she could see Freddie’s curiosity, the temptation to ask at the tip of his tongue, but Margaret would often elbow him in the ribs and he would occupy himself with something else.

She trusted Freddie with her entire life, but there was something about revealing who the father of her child was that terrified her to the core. She often suspected it was because she hated to think back to it, to think back to _him_. She did well in keeping her mind busy, but her subconscious ruled itself. At night it brought back moments shared with him, tender ones just as much as the gruesome ones. Still, she recalled the way his hands felt on her, caging her in to protect her, to possess her...Kate couldn’t do that to herself. She couldn’t face what stirred deep in her ribcage for that man from long ago.

But reality was not something anyone could escape. After seventeen hours of intense labor, of Kate’s heart rate slowing down, of an unexpected hemorrhage, and shouts laced in fear, Rose G. Fuller was born and the secret of her bloodline was answered in her tanned skin, sharp features, and bright blue eyes.

“Did he...Did he force you?” Freddie hesitantly, quietly asked Kate while Margaret fawned over the new baby on the opposite end of the hospital room. He knew Kate was exhausted, weak, but his hands shook in anger from the question he needed answered.

Before Kate’s eyes closed, sleep taking her off to an incomprehensible dreamland, she said, “No. He didn't take from me. I took from him.”

There were not many things in Kate’s life she considered a sin—not after everything God had taken from her that forced her to survive in any way she could. Yet, when her energy returned a month after giving birth, she found herself in a Catholic church, kneeling before a crucifix. With palms pressed together, she prayed for forgiveness for once believing her only option was to give up on her daughter before she was brought to the world. From the moment Kate’s eyes met her child’s an indestructible love formed deep in her heart, erasing people, places, and moments to carve Rose’s name in gold. Her baby girl was everything. She possessed Kate’s life now.

They stayed in Texas for two years before Freddie’s unexpected promotion came. He was offered a position as lieutenant in a Venice, California station. When he mentioned it during a Sunday breakfast, it was clear he had been intent on declining the offer, but one look into Margaret’s eyes told him she wanted to discuss the matter. Quick on picking up when the couple needed a moment, Kate hoisted Rose to her hip, grabbed Billie’s hand, and promised the two girls a trip to the park and cotton candy.

Although Texas was their home, Margaret could not stand it anymore. It wasn’t the blistering heat or the same people they encountered, it was the nightmares. It was Freddie’s isolation and anger that flared up and broke her heart with helplessness. She would give anything to take his pain, to lessen the darkness in his soul that had him chasing shadows every night, but there was nothing in her power to help him carry his burden. Not while they remained in Texas, where it all began. There was an offer to leave now, to put miles between him and the monsters, and she wanted so desperately for him to choose his family over the plague.

Kate finally got to the beach. In a different country, with different people, and a baby girl calling her mommy attached to her hip. She thought there would be peace in her heart when she looked out to the ocean and the sunny, bright sky overhead, sand between her toes, but all that formed was grief. She mourned a life—a person—she never thought she was wishing for. When they (him and her) talked about making it to the seaside, she assumed it was paradise they were seeking to find for a brief week before moving on to another shady motel in darker, infested parts of Mexico. Now she knew, with tears rolling down her cheeks, it was a life together, away from vampires and destroyed familial ties, they were really after. A broken home for two broken people that was completely their own.

She thought she could forget him, to forgive him at the very least, but that was not in the cards. Not when every day that Rose grew she resembled her paternal side. Not when she grinned, wrinkled her nose, or carefully watched her mother in ways that were all too familiar. Not when her sapphire gaze glittered so beautifully it reminded Kate of a man in glasses that wrestled with the demons in his head while his brother led them straight to hell. In order to breathe again, Kate had to let go of what had been and what could never be.

While standing before the powerful, unforgiving ocean, Billie and Rose building sand castles in their matching, neon pink suits, and Margaret sunbathing as Freddie drew ancient symbols on a notepad over a towel beside her, Kate whispered, “Goodbye, Seth” to the waves receding back.

She was moving on now.


	4. Back in Business

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on an updating roll.

The thing about being in the profession of killing vampires is that you are never really out of business. Especially when their over-heightened senses could smell the blood of their kind on your hands, or their acute vision could zero in on how you did not recoil at their presence and the way your fingers twitched to your pockets or bag for a potential weapon. And it definitely did not matter how much Kate and Freddie refused to wash culebra guts off their clothes and stakes, once a vampire slayer, always a vampire slayer.

After a seemingly calm year in sunny California filled with tans, popsicles, pier rides, and sushi restaurants, the culebras slithered out from the shadows. Like in a not too distant memory in Sonora, the Venice police department thought they were searching for a serial killer. It took less than a month of investigation for Lieutenant Gonzalez to realize their suspect was not a sick son of a bitch murderer, but rather a sick son of a bitch culebra with a fancy for blonde women between the age group of eighteen and twenty-three. He picked up details from the cases and stored them for himself, giving one dead-end after another to his department to throw them off the trail. Freddie went off on his own, tracking down leads until he stumbled on a nest living in an abandoned Bentley dealership.

“They do have their expensive tastes, don’t they? _Bentleys_. There was an empty shoe warehouse next to it,” Freddie said to Kate and Margaret with a laugh as they walked into his hospital room where he was having his arm reset and side stitched together after an animal (some sort of wolf, he had said in his statement) had clawed him.

Margaret nor Kate found his joke amusing. Where Kate usually gave the couple solitude to deal with the hardships that came with marriage, that time she lingered, throwing insults at Freddie as Margaret slapped him all over.

“There’s no running from it,” he said to them, covering his face with a pillow before Margaret threw at him the vase of flowers the department had sent to their lieutenant’s room. “Texas, Mexico, California—they’re everywhere. And they’re killing people. _Margie_ ,” he called tentatively, “I was a Ranger and now I’m a lieutenant. It’s my job to protect and serve the people, even from the monsters they don’t realize actually exist. I can’t keep turning a blind eye, sweetheart.”

It took Margaret a long minute before she lowered the vase. Although she loathed the idea, how could she begrudge him that? How could she ask him to forget the very reason why she thought him brave? How could she ask him not to be the man she fell in love with?

Kate knew all too well the world was infested with culebras. That had never escape her notice. It was the reason why her car was rigged with weapons, why she walked briskly when her beloved moon took over the sky, why she barred Rose’s bedroom window, why she signed up for a gym to train and build strength, and why she hardly made friends since coming to California. She did not trust the world they lived in. Despite that, however, she never was tempted to stalk the night in a trench coat, stakes in secret pockets, looking for culebras. But Freddie had gotten hurt now because he had gone in alone without backup, without a _partner_. While she knew she could never be part of a team like that again, she owed Freddie and Margaret everything she now had.

“No, Kate,” hissed Freddie, interrupting her before she could finish her sentence. “I can’t ask you to go out there with me. You have a kid—”

“So do you,” she accused, crossing her arms over her chest.

“It’s different.”

“I know,” Kate admitted with a frustrated sigh. “Billie has both parents. If something happened to you, then she at least has Margie. If I was hurt or killed, who would my Rose have? Which is why when I said I was going to help you I meant by finding leads and acquiring weapons. You will be doing the actual leg work.”

Freddie did not exactly concede to Kate’s plan, but she did not care what he thought. She poured herself over his files, tracing the culebras footprints and making connections to other cases. That was how she found their trademark kill in fifteen cases back in Sonora, Mexico.

When she called La Jolla, her heart pounding in her chest, fear licking up her spine over the possibility that dear, old Gloria had not made it out alive from the culebra attack the town had been under, Kate almost cried when she heard her kind voice through the phone. The call lasted hours (catching up on the last three years) before Gloria said she would send her son Benito, a hunter, to assist with the case.

It took four days for Benito to show up at their doorstep. Whatever it was that Kate had been expecting to find in Gloria’s son was absolutely not what she got. This man was young, tall, broad, and incredibly handsome. She flushed pink from head to toe, gawking back at him for what felt like an embarrassingly long time. It was Freddie’s throat clearing in the background that made her step aside, letting Benito in while Kate contemplated punching herself in the face.

“We’ve been tracking this nest for over five years,” Benito said to Kate and Freddie, adding to their files with his own share of records. “We followed them from Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and straight into Mexico. After Sonora we lost them for a year. The trail picked up again in El Paso all the way here.”

“Who’s we?” asked Freddie with suspicion flashing in his dark eyes. “Kate never actually got much details from your mother on how you’re all involved with the culebras. She trusts your mother, but me, I’m not too fond of putting my life in someone else’s hands.”

While Kate looked appalled with the tone Freddie had taken, Benito had not found offense. “Vampire hunting is a side to our family business. We put up restaurants in major cities with high culebra populations and go in for the kill. We started this after my father was killed by one. We vowed not to let other families experience the same loss we did.”

Rose and Billie were heard laughing from the kitchen where Kate had set up a painting area for them. The happy noise not only made something in Freddie and Kate to become apprehensive, but Benito smiled sadly, too.

“If we’re going to take this nest down, Lieutenant, I promise you I’ll do whatever I can to make sure you come back to your family whole,” he said, and Freddie believed him just as easily as Kate had.

As promised, Kate steered clear from fieldwork. She stuck to gathering weapons from hunters around the Los Angeles area (which were a lot, usually posing as medical marijuana clinics). She helped Benito’s small squad of hunters plan out the mission to take down the nest of culebras that had moved from Venice Beach to Malibu ( _‘yes, Freddie, I guess they do have expensive tastes,_ ’ Kate huffed when the new victims were wealthy bachelorettes). In three months Freddie and the hunters set off to do what was in their blood to do. They all returned battered and bruised, but with beating hearts.

Kate was sitting on a lounging chair, Rose on her lap, as they watched fireworks light up the sky to celebrate the fourth of July. It came a day following the takedown of the nest that they used it as an excuse to throw a farewell party for the hunters who had stopped by to help Freddie in the cause of culebra liberation.

“Are you scared, baby?” she asked her daughter when pyrotechnic red stars exploded over them. She adjusted the thin blanket over Rose, protecting her from the salty, cold wind of the beach.

Rose shook her head, but brought the blanket over her eyes, pushing herself impossibly closer against her mother.

“We can go home if you’d like,” Kate added as she pressed a tender kiss over her daughter’s cascading brown waves.

“No,” Rose returned, forcing herself to pull down the blanket shielding her. She often did that, pretended to be tougher than she actually was. Kate had seen that before so many times, not only from her own self, but from the other half that composed Rose. “They’re pretty, mama. I like them.”

“Not nearly as pretty as you, _pequeñita_.” The empty chair beside Kate was taken by Benito. He brought over a funnel cake, extending it is a gift to the three year-old smiling at him. “ _Ni como tu mama_ ,” he said when he handed Kate a water bottle (after having had declined the wine cooler another hunter had offered her).

Kate blushed at the compliment. Benito looked rough with his scattered scars and dark eyes, but in the last three months he had proven himself to be kind. Something about him was familiar and warm to her. A reminder of his mother, the woman who had offered Kate a slice of potential survival after she had been abandoned in Mexico with only a few hundred pesos to her name. It made it easy to breathe around him.

Still, friendship was as far as it had gone between them ( _if that_ ). There was hardly any free time to get to know each other when they were planning a mission to bring down the culebras that were stacking their victims at record speed.

“I want to ask your opinion on something,” he said quietly to Kate as her arms tightened around her little girl. “There’s an opportunity to open a Mexican seafood place on the boardwalk by the end of August. My friends think there’s no reason for me to put down roots here, but I think there might be a chance for something great. I’d just like to know if you believe that just as I do.”

There had not been a chance before, but now he was offering her one. A huge part of Kate wanted to grab her daughter and run until he forgot all about her, but a tiny part of her also had Margaret’s voice coaxing her into living again.

“He’s attractive and nice,” Margaret had said to Kate once on a late night, a bottle of wine opened on the counter as they waited for Freddie to return from the station. “Take my word on it, Kate. It doesn’t get any easier when you get older. My sister told me just as much when I was your age. Why do you think I married Freddie when I was twenty-five?”

“I’m twenty-one,” she reminded.

“Even better!” Margaret laughed, covering her mouth with a palm after Kate shushed her. Their girls had just gone down quietly and without protest. “Look, Katie, it doesn’t make you a bad person if you let yourself love again. Rose won’t hold that against you when she’s older.”

It wasn’t Rose who Kate thought about whenever she received a share of male attention and turned away from it. She wanted to keep that tidbit to herself, but after living under the same roof for three years with Margaret (and being good friends) it was impossible to keep almost anything from the older woman.

“You can’t put your life on pause for a memory,” murmured Margaret, placing a hand over Kate’s as a sign of solidarity. “Not when he chose to leave you.”

Alike Rose, Kate pretended to be a lot braver than she actually felt. She didn’t remove a blanket from her face like her daughter had, but she did look Benito in the eye when she said, “I think Mexican seafood will be a huge success.”

Three years after that Kate found herself thinking about that moment again.

The day started off without any signs things were about to change (at least none she thought obvious). She woke up at six in the morning, slid her pink slippers on, and walked to the kitchen to put on a fresh pot of coffee. Thirty minutes later, still half asleep but dressed in his respectable attire, Freddie grumbled at her as he served himself a piping hot cup. It took him ten minutes for the caffeine to kick in before he managed to form a complete sentence.

“You okay with taking Billie to school today, too, Kate?”

“I’ve done it before, Freddie.”

“Yeah, but now you’ve got Rose in kindergarten, too. Not to mention you haven’t had a day off from the clinic in a month. I don’t want you falling asleep on the wheel.”

Kate rolled her eyes. Although she had been a nurse for a little over two years now, she was still the mother to a five year-old that needed her full and prompt attention. Those two full-time positions did not come with days off. Her body and mind had grown used to whatever shards of energy she had left to complete the day as best as she could. Freddie knew that, too.

“I’ll be fine,” she finally said when she handed him a box of cereal.

He smiled gratefully at her. “Margie will swing by for Billie so you don’t have to worry about that.”

Kate rose a brow. “ _Why?_ ”

“She wants to have a mommy-daughter day or something,” he mumbled into his spoon, averting his eyes.

“I suppose. Margie did say she missed Billie now that she signed her up for karate _and_ soccer after school. Poor girl. She’s only seven.”

Freddie scoffed. “Says the one with a perfectly calm child. If Rose had just as much hyperactiveness as Billie you’d be signing her up for anything that tires her out.”

Kate laughed. “Billie gets it from her father, I hear.”

“Well, it’s a good thing Rose doesn’t get anything from her shitty excuse of father, or she’d be robbing banks after ballet.” It had slipped out before Freddie could stop himself.

She always knew Freddie scrutinized Rose. Not in any way that was malicious—he cared for her just as much as he cared about Kate—but he studied her quirks and mannerisms to see if anything matched up to her paternal side. There were a few obvious ones (aside from her physical characteristics): her snarky attitude when she was upset (that was not offensive in any way, but a form of defending herself), her coy smiles (that she used like loaded guns when she wanted something), her fierce protectiveness of Billie (even if the girl was two years older and taller than her), and the way she could talk herself out of almost anything (often leaving Kate bewildered as to why she was reprimanding her in the first place).

There were things about Rose, however, that Freddie couldn’t point out came from her unlawful side. Only Kate knew those because she had spent seven months on the run with her father. Only she knew Rose inherited his thick eyelashes, his shy laughter, his incomprehensible fear of loud noises ( _‘I just hear gunshots,’_ he told her once, _‘coming closer_ _and closer for me.’_ ), his bitter hatred of cauliflower ( _‘It’s a fucking imposter, that’s what it is, princess. It can’t be broccoli so it disguises itself. Goddamn lying vegetable.’_ ), his love for strawberry ice cream, his nervous tick (finger drumming over his knee), the way he held her hand (afraid she would go and never return), the way he slept (sprawled on his stomach, taking up most of the mattress), his fascination with old school cartoons and Al Pacino (not just necessarily from the father, but the brother, too), and the way his eyes would glitter with an adoration impossible to put into words when looking at Kate (a quick caress to the cheek or rare embrace would often suffice as an expression of it).

Freddie was afraid Rose’s resemblance to her father would one day be too much for Kate. She never shared details of those seven months lost in Mexico with him. She never told him just how much they had grown to depend, need, love each other when they had walked away from the world. Because of that lack of knowledge he had, she took a deep breath and released the flare of anger beneath her skin itching to defend a man who did not deserve it.

“What time’s your flight to Texas?” Kate asked instead, taking a casual sip from her coffee mug.

He cleared his throat, but an apologetic glint took over his eyes. “In two hours. Roman,” a hunter from Nepal (yes, culebras reached that far, too), “will meet me there so we can exchange information on the nest we are all tracking.”

“Human trafficking,” sighed Kate, disgust and fear bright in her eyes. “As if killing innocent people wasn’t enough, culebras are now expanding their black market products.”

“We’ll stop them. But for that we need all the leads we can get. It was an accident that I stumbled on this case, but now that we are invested in this, we need to get a hold of names before the Feds. It’ll be a bloodbath if they do first.”

Kate nodded sadly. There weren’t many members in any form of police field that knew about culebras. As such, many stormed in blind, unprepared for the monsters that would not go down with regular bullets. In the six years Kate had been tapping into Freddie’s confidential information, two hundred officers had been killed by culebras.

“Say hello to Ben for me, then,” said Kate with a small smile before Freddie left the house.

Freddie grinned hugely at her, then coughed wildly, averting his eyes again when he caught himself doing so. “Yeah, I’ll do that. You take care of my girls for me, Katie. I’ll see you in two days.”

Having to wake up two little girls for school at seven in the morning was like playing Russian roulette. Some days Billie and Rose would cooperate; they would wake up in good moods, singing as they brushed their teeth, as Billie did her hair (now that she was all grown up and didn’t need her mother or Kate’s help) while Kate brushed Rose’s messy waves, or immediately agreed to a breakfast of choice. Occasionally there were rough mornings; these consisted of Rose crying and Billie throwing a tantrum when the curtains parted to let sunlight in, they bickered about lost socks and hair ties, or refused hearty meals for sugary cereals. That particular day, however, both were bright and cheery. Kate even got a kiss on the cheek before they went into their separate classrooms.

It had been years since Kate found herself with spare time. She was not used to being alone; without a little girl tugging on her sleeve, asking questions about the wonders around her she was just discovering, or patients seeking medical attention and all the expertise they could get from Kate. She felt sort of lost. When browsing the local mall did not satisfy her for more than an hour, she threw her shopping bags (dresses and bikinis she and Rose needed for their vacation to the Bahamas with Benito at the end of the month he insisted they take) in the trunk and drove to downtown Los Angeles.

After paying a ridiculous amount for parking (that she was still complaining about after four years of living in California), Kate let the sun bring out the joy she felt being at the center of the busy city. She felt at home among the noise, passing through endless stands selling odd trinkets and counterfeit items, the Mexican food restaurants, and the mariachi as their soundtrack. It reminded her of the mercados in Mexico she had grown fond of (and robbed).

She entered a boutique that sold dresses for special occasions. Although the shop made good money in quinceanera and prom seasons, its huge revenue was from selling weapons from the backroom.

“Hey, Chuy,” she greeted the man behind the register. He appeared intimidating by all the tattoos decorating his skin in black shades and the multiple piercings on his face, but he was a marshmallow. Kate lucked out in finding him (she never did trust the sketchy people selling weapons out of the medical marijuana clinics) when she met Lola, his wife and vicious vampire hunter who had crossed paths with Freddie a year ago.

Chuy put down his phone when he heard Kate’s voice. “ _Hola, chica,_ ” he said with a huge grin. “I wasn’t expecting you today. You’re not preaching Christianity again, are you?”

“I wasn’t trying to convert you, Chuy,” Kate laughed, “I was delivering the bible you ordered for your mama. Remember?”

“Shit, Kate. I don’t remember anything about that night. I was so drunk.”

“Crying was how I remember it, actually,” teased Kate. “Lola didn’t let you in the house because you went gambling with the other hunters on your anniversary night.”

Chuy blushed, but quickly dismissed the subject. “What can I do you for? Are you gonna finally baptize Rosita, _o que?_ I got you with the gown, _chica_.”

Everyone who ultimately knew Kate was once the daughter of a preacher could not fathom why she had not introduced Rose to the church yet. While she simply shrugged as an answer, Kate knew that while she had learned to readjust her faith and believe in God in her own terms, she did not want to force that on her daughter. Rose would eventually grow up, and no matter how much Kate wanted to protect her from the world, there would be experiences and disappointments she cannot fix. When that happened, Rose had the right to look to her own belief system to guide her through the rough aspects of life. It was blasphemous for someone with her church-centric background, Kate knew, but it was only fair not to force something on a child who did not know how easy it was to lose faith.

“I actually came here to pay you for last month’s haul,” she said as she pulled out a cash envelope from her purse. “Freddie said you improved the crossbows, but Ben thinks the arrows need to be denser.”

“Put your money away, Kate. You offend me,” Chuy grumbled, crossing his arms in rejection of the envelop she was stretching out to him. “You saved my Lola’s life that last mission. I told you, the haul was on me. I owe _you_ one.”

“The bullet didn’t puncture any organs, Chuy. She was not in any real harm.”

“Yeah, she was. If you didn’t help her she would’ve been screwed by the government. Fucking forced to pay taxes as an immigrant, but she can’t see a doctor? Nah, Kate. You’re our guardian angel. Besides,” he laughed now, aiming a wink at her, “that money will come to use for something better.”

By the time Kate had to pick up Rose from elementary school, she could have sworn she saw Margaret dodge her among the other parents. While she dismissed it as a figment of her imagination, Kate’s complete attention was on the little girl dressed in a yellow sundress and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ backpack.

“I missed you, mama,” said Rose with her arms around Kate’s hips.

“I missed you more, baby,” returned Kate, pressing a kiss to the top of her daughter’s head. “Now,” she continued, taking Rose’s hand into hers, “tell me all about your day.”

On the way to the car Rose was telling her how easy she found reading the books her teacher gave her before she stopped, pulled from Kate’s hand, and ran ahead.

“ _Rose!_ ” screamed Kate, heart pounding in her chest when a van had to stomp on the brakes when the little girl crossed its path.

Once the van had moved, heading off in the direction of the exit, Kate’s hands stopped shaking when she found her daughter in the arms of Benito.

“Look, mama!” squealed Rose as she wrapped her skinny arms around the man’s neck, “It’s daddy!”

“Ben,” she said after releasing the terrified burst of air she held in her chest. “What are you doing here? I thought you were meeting Freddie in Texas?”

With his arms securely around Rose, Benito leaned down to press a kiss on Kate’s lips. “He didn’t really need me for this. And he knew it’s been two weeks since I saw my favorite girls,” he now pressed a kiss to Rose’s cheek, making her giggle. “Couldn’t help myself, _amor_. I’m sorry for not letting you know I was coming in.”

Kate shook her head, pulling on a smile. “Don’t apologize. We’re happy to see you,” she said as she put an arm around his waist, looking up at him fondly. “Aren’t we, baby?”

As Rose nodded along happily, Benito said, “How about an outing? It is Friday and Rosita can usually stay up longer on these days.”

“Sounds perfect,” Kate said before he stole another kiss from her.

The way Kate and Benito’s relationship progressed was slow ( _‘Snails move faster than this, Kate,’_ Margaret had said with a frustrated sigh). It took almost three months of them getting to know each other before she let him kiss her, almost a year of them dating before she accepted to be his girlfriend, and almost a year and a half before she had sex with him. He never judged or pressured her into anything (something Kate assumed Gloria warned her son against after telling him in the state they met back in Sonora). She kept a lot to herself, but one thing she did confess to Benito early on was her fear of relationships. She felt like that teenage girl back in Bethel, too afraid of impure thoughts and actions that could be deemed unacceptable by God, but it was not the physical that terrified her this time around. It was the vulnerability, the little details that made her want to run. Kate didn’t know how to open up her heart again.

Benito never quit and part of her really appreciated that. He offered her a hand and patiently waited as long as she needed for her to take it. Once she had, step by step, they moved together. There was something about his warm eyes and kind heart that made her feel safe. And how could she not grow affection for someone that loved her daughter so intently, so protectively like she was his own? Benito had known Kate was a packaged deal and never did anything to undermine that. He put Kate and Rose’s comfort and needs before his own. In turn, seeing how friendly and sweet he was, Rose grew an attachment to him, too.  

When he told her he loved her for the first time, Kate said it back without overthinking it. She did love him. It was so easy to. Yet, after a perfect day out that ended with them having an impromptu picnic (or she thought) at the beach where he first asked for a chance, Kate felt her entire body freeze in absolute fear when he got down on one knee.

“Kate,” he whispered, “these past three years with you and Rose have been some of the best of my life. I never thought I would find someone strong enough to handle knowing what I do for a living, the restaurant business being a gruesome one and all,” he said with a grin in Rose’s direction, distracting her from the truths she was too pure to know, “but you came along and gave me hope that one day I  could put down roots. So, here, _con tu hija,_ I’d like to know if you believe that just as I do?”

Like that night three years ago, Kate wanted to grab her daughter and run until he forgot all about her, but another part of her had Margaret’s voice reminding her that she could no longer put her life on hold for something—for someone—that would never come back. It wasn’t just about Kate anymore, either. Rose mattered, too. Just because Kate could handle being broken and in mismatched shapes, that did not mean her daughter did not deserve a chance at a real family. Rose had Kate, _always_ ; she even had Freddie and Margaret, her honorary godparents who cherished her so dearly, and Billie as an older sister figure, but it just wasn’t enough.

“When you went with Freddie to look for houses last month, it wasn’t for us, was it?” Kate returned. “It was for you and me and Rose.”

Still on his knee, Benito nodded. “I want to give you two everything, Kate. I want Rosita to have a proper family—”

The rest was cut off when Kate threw her arms around him. “Yes,” she whispered back, her hands shaking and her eyes spilling tears she was not too sure were happy ones, “I will marry you.”

When the night’s wind became too cold for Rose, Kate and Benito went their separate ways. He had to go back to the base he had set up for nomad hunters to check in on Freddie and other dealings, but with a kiss he promised he would see her the following morning. With that, Kate and a swooning Rose drove home.

After parking (and Rose insisting she could carry all the shopping bags her mother had acquired earlier), Kate’s indignation toward Margaret returned. She knew Margaret would never break a secret entrusted to her, especially if it was something like a _marriage proposal_ , but with a little warning Kate could have had a chance to prepare, to sort out her insecurities and questions to avoid absolute silence after the engagement ring had been slipped on her finger.

“Margaret Gonzalez,” she called from the door as Rose lollygagged behind her, “You have a lot of explaining to—” An involuntary shriek left Kate’s mouth when she found Margaret and Billie at gunpoint.

Just as Kate and Freddie were back to hunting vampires, Seth and Richie Gecko found their way back to the hostage business.

 

 


	5. Truth Behind the Door

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, here's another chapter so quickly. I have 3 more chapters done for this, but sadly I'm getting sick and the daily updating might slow down after those. Sigh. Nonetheless, hope you like this.

Kate had known what paralyzed by fear felt like. It took control of your body, locking your limbs, shutting your brain down before it could send fight-or-flight signals to the rest of your body that could help you escape the danger ahead. This, what she felt at that very moment, was not that. She was not afraid. She was immobile because her heart, her previously bruised and mangled heart, was pushing itself against the barrier around it, forcing itself to rearrange back together again, back into the shape it had been when she first had crossed paths with the Geckos. The overwhelming sensation numbing her bones was not out of terror, it was out of completely complicated bliss. It was like her soul was breathing again.

The last person she expected to share that with her, to _look_ like he felt the same, was Richie. He let out a tender whisper carrying her name. And it broke the delusion Kate was in.

At record speed, Kate slammed the door separating the hall/kitchen area with the sitting room, pulling out a crossbow from behind the entertainment setup.

“Put the guns down,” she hissed at them, planting her feet firmly on the ground.

It had been six years since she last saw Seth, but nothing about him had changed. He was an exact image of who he had been when he shoved her out of that motel room, cursing her very existence; dark, handsome, and stormy. A real son of a bitch.

While fury burned in her bloodstream when that memory resurfaced, making Kate grip the crossbow tighter, he seemed unrattled by it—by _her_. There were no signs on his sharp features that insinuated remorse of what he had done.

“Easy there, Katniss Everdeen,” said Seth, raising one hand at Kate as a signal to calm down while the other still had his gun pointed at Margaret's head. “Put that down before someone—”

Kate aimed an arrow above his head.

“Jesus _fuck_!” growled Seth.

“The next one goes into your eye, Gecko. Now put the guns down.”

Richie did immediately as he was told, still unconcerned about Kate with a weapon as his brother had previously been. Except with him there was mirth in his blue eyes; his pale features suggested glimmers of a strange contentment, of a reasonable longing that resembled the same way he used to look at her on that stupid RV.

“Fine!” Seth lowered his gun, stuffing it back into the waistband of his black trousers. “But for the record, Fuller, we came in here quietly. Knocked on the goddamn door and all that shit before barging in. She’s the one that shot Richie.”

Kate now noticed a tear in Richie’s suit, right on the shoulder. A patch of his skin was visible, blood crusting over, but the wound had already mended together.

“Remind me to upgrade your gun, Margie,” Kate said with venom that was directed at the intruders, “that way next time you aim there _will_ be a dead culebra.”

Margaret pulled Billie into her chest, covering her eyes from the men in the sitting room. Neither of them was crying, which was not a surprise to Kate. Freddie had trained them well. Although Margaret had never encountered culebras, she was well aware of the horror they were; her husband had warned her not to lose her composure if she had to ever face one (or their asshole, human brothers). While Billie was too young to know of monsters, she was the daughter of a Ranger-turned-Lieutenant; she was tougher than her skinny framed appeared.

“They caught me off guard, Katie,” whispered Margaret, a frown creasing between her brows. “Their knocking was the code you use,” Kate’s jaw tightened while Seth’s eyes narrowed, a coolness taking over him that was brought out to mask his thoughts, “I was making dinner and had Billie open. I should’ve been more careful.”

She didn’t blame Margaret—how could she?—or herself. Yeah, she had used the code Seth had invented back in Mexico when he left to get them food and Kate stayed to clean the culebra guts off her skin, but she never thought he would come back. Let alone to find her after he had made it clear he was done with her for good.

“Get out,” she hissed, raising her weapon a centimeter higher.

“No can do, princess—”

Another arrow left Kate’s crossbow. This time it was a lot closer to Seth’s face than the last one had been.

“ _Don’t call me that_ ,” she warned.

There was a thump behind the closed door that no one heard but Richie. His head tilted to the side, ears perking up, forcing himself to adjust to the noises all around him.

“Are you fucking kidding me? Put that shit down!” Seth shouted back.

Richie could tell apart the people in the room with him. Seth’s blood was rushing at the speed his heart rate was picking up; he was angry, he smelled of cologne and whiskey, and his body heat was close enough to feel a shade of his sweat. The ranger’s wife was nervous, Richie could hear it in her pulse; she smelled like vanilla and the scent of a man that was undeniably her husband’s (it was the fragrance of righteous _rinche_ ). Same went for the daughter.

“I’ll only put it down after I put you down,” Kate returned, her cheeks flushing red from more than her fury. “Get the hell out.”

“We ain’t leaving, peaches!”

Then there was Kate; sweet, sweet Kate who still emitted the same light that captivated Richie from the moment he laid eyes on her so many years ago. She was still bleeding, too. While she was just as furious as Seth was, there was something more to the way her blood traveled through her body. There was a lick of fear. She smelled just as delicious and inviting as ever, but there was a trace of something—of someone—he could not place that twined with the salty mist of ocean breeze that lingered on her skin.

Richie could sense all that from the people around him, but there was _more_. It came from behind Kate. A breathing so quietly he would not have put it past another culebra to miss. Except, he was not just some fucking random culebra; he was Richie Gecko and nothing escaped him. Not the soft breathing, not the human warmth on the other side, not the iridescent light peeking from beneath the door, or the way he was drawn to it.

“What’s behind you, Kate?” Richie asked, distracting both his brother and her from their useless bickering.

He felt her fear suddenly spike.

“Nothing,” she said sharply. Richie still took a step forward and she adjusted the crossbow. “Don’t,” she threatened. “The first two were warning shots. The third one won’t be.”

He continued to approach. Just as Seth had often tried to intimidate Kate by towering over her, Richie was pulling the same stunt. When once she had known the brothers would never do anything that purposely hurt her, she was not too sure of that now. She knew he could see that in her bright green eyes flashing with apprehension. It was up for debate how far they would go, but something unbelievably wrong inside Kate could not pull the trigger as his hands wrapped around her shoulders to carefully move her aside.

She held her breath when the door opened.

“ _Fuck_.”

Seth shuffled on his feet, taking a step forward. “Fuck _what_ , Richard? As in do we have an army of batshit crazy women out there with more crossbows?” He pulled out his gun again. “Or all of this was a setup and Ranger Gonzalez is pointing a fucking gun at you?”

Richie hesitated—and Richie never fucking hesitates. Both Seth and Kate knew that. The former was beginning to take another step, patience gone, but then Richie pulled away from the door after he reached out and a tiny palm was now being swallowed by his.

“As in there was more to those seven months in Mexico you neglected to share, brother.”

Seth saw now what had stumped Richie. It was a little girl—a little girl with _his_ same colored skin, _his_ same features, and those tell-tale sapphire eyes that were as much Richie’s as they were their mother’s.

“Mommy?” cried Rose, tugging away from Richie’s hand as she ran to wrap her arms around Kate’s hips.

She was terrified, Kate knew. She only called her ‘mommy’ when the loud noises made her feel trapped and isolated, when Kate first started working at the clinic and she thought her mother would never come back to her, and now when evil men came out from hiding and threatened a home that had always been a fortress of solitude.

“That’s what the Ranger meant,” said Richie, still completely unaware of timing and place.

“Freddie?” Margaret was the one to speak. “What did he say to you?”

Richie was about to start elaborating when Kate interjected with, “No. Not in front of them.” She knelt down before Rose, pushing the crossbow against the wall before grabbing her tiny hands. “Billie,” Kate called despite looking in her daughter’s eyes, silently reassuring her everything was alright. “Take her to your room, please. Stay there, both of you.”

Billie removed her face from her mother’s chest, looking up at her with questioning brown eyes. Once she got a nod from Margaret, Billie got to her feet, frowning at the intruders as she walked up to Kate and Rose.

Although she felt safest with her mother, Rose let Billie put thin arms around her and steer her to the direction of the bedrooms. She blinked up, meeting both men’s eyes. Richie felt her fear and confusion diminish almost instantly.

The distraction allowed Margaret to bolt up, yanking one of the guns stuck to the underside of the center table, and pointed it forward. “What happened to my husband?” she demanded, cocking the gun now.

Richie glared at Margaret; he could see the way her fingers were slightly shaking, and that was all it took for a bullet to escape. He could take a bullet and survive, but Seth couldn’t. And definitely not in the comatose state he was now in.

“It seemed we were following the same leads back in Texas. Seth and me had everything under control out front and Frederico was sniffing around in the back like the mongrel he is,” Margaret took a step closer to him, hate in her brown eyes, “when everything went to shit. We’re talking guns a-blazin’ and grenades a-blowin’. He told us to find Kate and deliver a message before he was flagged down by some culebras.”

Margaret’s loud intake of breath made Kate return to her body. She had been too caught up locking in on Seth—Seth, who was still frozen to the core, a thousand things flashing in his eyes, all ranging from maddening to enraged, confused to betrayed, shocked to miserable—that she almost missed what Richie was saying. She forced her thoughts from her most precious secret being revealed to walk over to her friend, wrapping a hand around her wrist.

“Margie,” breathed Kate so tenderly it earned her attention from everyone in the room, “it’s going to be okay. We’ll find him. I promise.”

“Assuming Buffy is still alive,” quipped Richie, “it’s not in the plans for him to be rescued. Quite the opposite, actually. He wanted you on lockdown, Katie.”

“I don’t care. Freddie is my friend—he’s _family_ ,” she hissed out the word with so much sincerity and allegiance that Richie’s eyes glazed over in hints of resentment, “and I’m going to go after him. I don’t need your help or your protection. Both of you can go back to wherever the hell you came from.”

“ _‘Born in blood and thorns and a broken womb’_ ,” Seth’s voice came low and deep, making Kate turn to him. Their eyes met, emerald and dark, and it almost pushed Kate down to her knees. What burned in his gaze was so intense and raw—it reminded her of that night six years ago, the night he had pushed into her and claimed everything she was willing to offer and even what she was not. “It’s a line from a prophecy us and the Ranger were tracking. He said you were it.”

Richie watched Kate swallow roughly, her hand on the ranger’s wife slackened. It was the woman’s turn to hold on.

“ _‘Her light is the key to end their eternal throne’_ ,” he contributed. “‘Their throne’ refers to the Nine Lords of the Night. And you, Kate, are the light that will end them. You’re the one who is supposed to help Seth and me destroy them once and for all.”

“It also means you have a target on your back,” said Seth. “We weren’t the only ones looking for the prophecy. The Nine are, too.”

“That’s why the Ranger told us to find you. He had said to protect ‘them’—which now we see didn’t mean his wife and kid. He wouldn’t trust us with something like that, would he? No. He meant you and....”

Richie felt both Seth and Kate wince at his pause.

“Katie,” murmured Margaret with an aghast gaze.

“I know,” she whispered back.

This prophecy. It was all slowly starting to make sense, the secrets and hushed tones Freddie shared back and forth with himself. When he had introduced the newest culebra case to the hunters he said it was linked to a major human trafficking ring, one they could trace from Texas to Mexico. He said he didn’t have names or concrete leads, but that he would find them after traveling to those regions to further investigate (he had done five trips in the last two months). Kate studied his files and found no traces, but there were always these symbols etched on the corner of the folders. She thought Freddie was having nightmares again; they were sort of visions they both refused to think of as real (especially after Kate had shared what Santanico had done to Richie’s head), but had him marking up stacks of paper and his own skin with what he saw. She should have been able to see the signs of him going rogue. He was tracking something that was not only connected to the human trafficking case, but exceeded it in far more complex ways.

 _Born in blood_ —everyone was born covered in blood, but Kate had suffered an unexpected hemorrhage while giving birth to Rose. _Born in blood and thorns_ —Thorn Valley was the hospital where Kate had ended up after the ambulance had taken a detour from the Catholic hospital Margaret had assured her was the best in their region. _Born in blood and thorns and a broken womb_ —all those health complications Kate experienced the last months of her pregnancy had made her doctor believe her body was rejecting the baby, stemming a joke that fell from Kate’s own lips that maybe she was defective, broken....

Freddie had known all of this because he lived it beside Kate (just as Margaret had put it together now, too). That was why he had gone off on his own without telling her what he had found. And when he was on the brink of being captured he saw the only opportunity before him; he swallowed down his hate for the Geckos to give Kate and Rose a head start.

But the Geckos didn’t know about Rose. They didn’t know what Freddie did. They just assumed the light meant Kate because they had labeled her purity from the beginning as something compelling and important.  

“Okay,” she said, looking up to face Richie and Seth. “I’ll go with you. But I will be tracking down Freddie, too. You can keep me locked down in a hole, but when the moment comes that I hear even a whisper about him, I’m leaving. You can help or get out of my way, either way I don’t care.”

Margaret tugged Kate back. “You can’t.”

“Margie—”

“No, I know, Kate,” she said with an underline of desperation. “I know you’d do anything to help Freddie, but this...You have to go right now, put distance between the culebras hunting you. It’s the only way to make sure you make it out alive, that...”

 _That Rose will be safe._ Kate knew what Margaret wanted to say. It was Kate’s main priority, after all.

“I’ll go with them,” Kate said with a deep inhale, forcing her courage to come out as her hands shook, “and you will go to the base in Utah. You will be safe there. All three of you.”

“Three?”

“You’re taking my daughter with you, Margie.”

No one saw Seth’s reaction coming. With a kick, he hurled the center table toward the entertainment center, making things crack from the impact; he elbowed past Margaret, pushing her down onto the couch, out of his way, and his tittering hands, rough and calloused, clutched Kate’s shoulders, shaking her with the furious vibrations his body was producing.

An automatic gasp left Kate’s lips from the sudden action. It had been six years but she still remembered the way he smelled (always like alcohol and something so musky, so manly that made her cheeks flush pink) and the way her body fit tucked under his chin. By an old compulsory pattern, her arms wanted to wrap around his waist, to hold on tight to him like she had done in the past when either had been an inch from death, but the nails digging into her skin brought tears to her eyes from the sting.

“Seth,” snarled Richie, launching himself between them after pulling on his brother’s collar to move him back. He reeled Kate into his arms, burying her against his chest. “Are you fucking crazy?”

In any other circumstance Kate could have laughed at the irony of that statement. She wanted to, even, but Seth’s threatening growl of, “ _No!_ ” stopped her. “You are not leaving my—you are not leaving her with some fucking strangers, do you hear me? We are not abandoning her.”

There was something so tragic in the way his voice shook that had Kate conceding in the next minute. 


	6. Confucius Bullshit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my favorite chapter so far. Mostly because I love Seth.

There was one universal truth Seth Gecko never fucking questioned: he was a no good, goddamn bastard.

Most people would find something irrevocably wrong with that statement, try to change their daily life to become something real good, real fucking worthy, but Seth? No; Seth _embraced_ it. It made this whole thieving career so much easier if he renounced morality and all other Confucius bullshit. Conform to norms and limits, have a moral disposition to do good, respect and love—all fucking ridiculous, useless hippie notions. The world did not work that way. Life was not a fucking Disney movie with singing trees and raccoons to justify when a bastard came through to take everything you owned. You prepped yourself to become _the_ bastard. Armed to the teeth, you took what you wanted from the world before it took it from you. Simple enough. The Gecko life motto.

Except, after you build yourself up to be the top dog, after you have stolen more than you’re capable of containing, the world will fucking come around to bend you over and screw you so fucking hard you can’t stand upright after it. That was exactly what happened to Seth. He stole thirty million dollars in bonds and thought sunshine and blue agave waited right on the other side of the border. Wrong. _Fucking wrong._ What waited on the other side of the border was the goddamn Titty Twisty hosting a fucking nest of demons led by the Snake Queen who needed his brother to set her free. Talk about the biggest fuckover of the year.

If the world could still hurl surprise grenades at Seth, was there any fucking doubt his universal truths were about to start being immediately questioned? Of course not. He was a no good, goddamn bastard. Keep up.

He left the Twister with a teenage girl and drove off further into Mexico. When they first hit a motel, closing curtains, clutching guns, trying to find pieces of unconsciousness like it would fucking benevolently come, he never even spoke to her. He never even fucking looked this girl in the eye—this girl he had kidnapped and used, this girl whose entire family was dead because he refused to give her the keys to their ugly fucking RV he had hijacked back in Texas. Now there they were, shacked up in a shabby motel, covered in grime, blood, and abomination, and he did not apologize for all that he had done. Anyone else would have felt remorse—and maybe he did, maybe deep inside his fucking chest, past the deformed heart Richie had broken, he couldn’t even _breathe_ because he took so fucking much from her—but Seth, being the true bastard that he was, stepped out that second night and injected poison into his veins. Had he any goddamn decency, he would have offered her a hit to help push away the monsters that made her wake up screaming at night. But her big, green eyes narrowed at him, condemning him back to hell, over and over again, he had no other choice but to look away.

They ended up in Guadalajara almost a month later, at another miserable shithole, when Seth realized there was more to having Kate around than a moment of delusion back at the Twister. They were doing their first hold-up together (after she insisted she contribute because she didn’t want to owe him anything, like he was busy keeping fucking IOUs) when a culebra jumped out from behind the counter and attacked. It was the first monster they had encountered since the temple. It had made Seth stop, unable to function—and it was that second of hesitance, of fear (like he was some _bitch_ ) that almost cost Kate her life. The culebra sunk its claws into her arm, pulling her down to her knees—Seth shot ten rounds before teeth sunk into her throat. After they had gotten away, Kate on the bed, counting the score like her arm wasn’t in need of stitches, he just watched her, his heart still pounding in adrenaline and fear. A fear that had nothing to do with the vampire he put down, but the thought of that thing killing Kate. If that had happened, Seth would have returned back to the shitty motel alone. He would be by himself. Completely. Fuck everything straight to hell; he had let this teenage girl come along because he was afraid of what the world would be like as a lonesome bastard. As much as she was a reminder to that fucking terrible place, to what had happened to his brother, to what he had done to her, Seth needed her.

“Hey, princess,” he had called out to her, distracting her from her counting, “what’d you say to leaving this crap-fest? We can go back to that motel you spotted the town over.”

She was smarter than to trust him, he knew. It made him almost fucking smirk when she frowned at him, suspicion in her emerald gaze. “Really?”

“Yeah. We scored more than enough for the next three weeks. We can splurge on something else.”

He was not prepared for the healing magic of her smile (the goddamn cliche).

Of course, as it would turn out, everything hostile and difficult that stemmed from their time together came from him. Seth was one begrudging motherfucker, even to people that did not deserve the animosity. So he toned it down low enough for her to laugh and sing in his presence. It was some sort of fucking wonderful. Close to being enough to forget what they were running away from. Preacher’s daughter and all, but he knew she would never truly forgive him for what her life had become. He accepted that. He learned to live with it so long as he could have her riding shotgun in whatever car they had stolen that week.

It was during those times, those long drives from town to town, that served as neutral ground. There was no reminders of the Twister, his drug problem, or how much she hated him. Anything went on the road to nowhere. It was how he got to know more about her, more than the slightly-timid-but-not-really girl who could recite the bible like it was a mainstream pop song on the radio (and there were a lot of those, even in Spanish). She talked about her aspirations (never voicing how now they would never come true): she wanted to run for homecoming queen despite knowing Jessica, one of her more popular friends, would win it, she was nervous for the bake sale the church was hosting for the holidays (her mama always baked her famous, homemade apple pie that she could never get just right), but knew it would be successful because the congregation supported one another, she thought about going to college somewhere outside Bethel to major in teaching or nursing ( _‘something that helps people, you know? My daddy would have loved_ _that.’_ ), she would eventually come back home and marry Kyle, have a life like her daddy and mama had, and she would teach her children all about God and giving back (Seth never made a joke about her small-town mentality because all of it had burned down to ashes to ever become true).

When he wasn’t asking questions about her, she asked about him. She had not taken the plunge right away because she knew how back and forth his mood swings were (he was trying day five of getting clean), but one day, just as the sun was coming out in orange and pink shades over the horizon as they drove to Puebla, she bit her lip and summoned the courage. Seth had not been in the state of wanting to take a stroll through memory lane, but her big, curious eyes made him cave ( _‘Alright, pay attention, Fuller. I’m about to school you on the beginnings of Seth Gecko the history books won’t get right.’_ ).

He told her fragments of his life that weren’t unbelievably drenched in crime: when he was one he was so confused as to what was growing inside his mother’s belly, and when it turned out to be Richie, he cried for two whole days ( _‘Eventually the fucker grew on me,’ he had said,‘because he was so weird looking, I think. Not that that changed when he got older. I mean,_ look at me _. I’m clearly the more attractive one.’_ ), he had a football phase, was the quarterback from middle school to high school, he once broke his arm after diving off a cliff when his Uncle Eddie had taken him and Richie to Hawaii for summer break ( _‘He was actually smuggling dope, but we didn’t care. We had never been out of Kansas before.’_ ), he told her how he had met Vanessa when he was twenty and thought she was his savior ( _‘Turns out she was the fucking anti-christ intent on dragging me to hell.’_ ), how they got married at a chapel in Vegas after a successful robbery (Richie cursed under his breath throughout the entire ceremony), and, no, he didn’t buy into fairytale bullshit (when Kate bought a Mickey Mouse sweater from a liquor store after culebra blood had soaked through her previous one) not because he was a man, but knowing first hand how life wasn’t fair ( _‘Hakuna Matata my ass, Fuller.’_ )

When they stopped to stargaze ( _‘I’m resting my fucking eyes. Stop calling it that.’_ ) the conversations often changed to something more uncomfortable. The moon overhead had to be just right for either one to cooperate, to not let the question linger and fade away with the soft music coming from the radio. It was not their most cherished or favorite aspects of their time together, but it added weight to the bond neither wished to have.

“Why do you still wear that necklace?” he asked before biting into a burger they had gotten from the last restaurant in miles. “Don’t tell me you still believe in God after everything.”

He was sure she was not going to answer until she took a deep breath. “I don’t know if I still believe in God. At least, not in the way I did before. I feel him in my heart, but some days I don’t want him there. Still...” she paused, fingering the gold cross around her neck. “I believe in my mama.”

Seth stared back, brow raised in question.

“She was real, Seth. She wasn’t this beautiful illusion my daddy wanted us to believe in. She was broken. She saw the world for what it was, black and white, but also a whole lot of grey. Despite that, she loved us. She adopted Scott, she took me to ballet classes, she went rafting with us, she did bake sales at church, and tucked us in at night....She was broken, but she _tried_. Even though my mama didn’t make it out alive, I want to believe that despite being broken there’s a chance for something better.”

Once, back in the first weeks of their union, he told her there was no place for tears in this life. She had stopped them from coming out from then on, or often took a walk so he couldn’t see. Now, with the moonlight casting over her dulcet face, he saw them sparkle. He didn’t comment on them.

Instead, he hesitantly placed a hand on her knee. “My mom left us before Richie was four. I used to hate her for it every day since. But when I got older, when I thought running away from home was my only chance at survival, I understood her desperation. She was trapped for so long with my son of a bitch father. I couldn’t blame her for going insane. I couldn’t blame her for taking the first exit she saw.”

“What stopped you from leaving?” she asked past a sniffle.

“I loved Richie more than she ever did.”

There was a moment of silence that was filled by a radio host giving out details on a couple who had just robbed a small bank in Guanajuato.

“Do you still think about her?”

He shrugged, biting into his burger again. He didn’t have to answer it, he knew she knew the answer to that.

“What was her name?” her next question came as they continued the drive down an abandoned road out of Guanajuato for Zacatecas.

The time for inconvenient conversation was over, but Seth, with his hands tightening over the steering wheel, still said, “Rose. Her name was Rose.”

“It’s a beautiful name.”

“I know, princess.”

So, no, it wasn’t right after surviving the Twister that Seth started questioning his life. He learned to curve his fucking anger long enough to admit to himself (only ever to himself) how much Kate meant to him. It took seven months of traveling together, of being partners, for the hunch that something was wrong to  come.

It happened when her black dress—that black dress that made him do a double take after she had stepped out in it, hair curled, and lips painted red ( _‘Are you going out to have a good time, or are you helping me rob the fucking place, Fuller?’_ he had hissed in what was more jealous over-protection than annoyance)—landed at his feet after she had blindsided him by kissing him.

“Kate,” he heard himself say, his voice shaking along with his hands, something like fear and desperation all in one (like when he was having withdrawals from the drugs).

He wanted to look away. He wanted to tell her to stop being stupid as he handed her back her dress, but nothing was happening. He had a sense that he was about to fuck up something good, but he could see it end in chaos and he welcomed it. He wanted it. He needed it.

Maybe it was that in seven months he had steered clear from women and the carnal activities that transpired between two humans (because, really, what kind of careless fuck had time to think about that when there were vampires to kill and a girl already waiting for him?). Maybe it was the bullet that had missed her by an inch and made him terrified of thinking about a life without her. Maybe it was how his own anger obscured his judgement. Maybe it was that he could no longer hide his secret, unwanted desire for her (that he worked so fucking hard in trying to stomp down with alcohol and reminders that he ruined her life) that was now being fed and forced to come alive.

Whatever excuse he was trying to come up with to justify himself, Seth still put his hands on her waist to pull her in.

If her biggest confession had been kissing a kid behind her father’s church, he knew her virginity was still intact. That should have been enough to stop him from claiming her mouth, from sliding his tongue past her teeth to taste her; they were in another rundown motel, her hands covered in his blood, his shoulder freshly stitched together with clothing thread, and whiskey in his system—he couldn’t make her first time beautiful or some kind of special. Hell, with the way she pulled his hair and ground into him, he knew he would not even be able to give her sweet and gentle.

She purposely pressed the other side of his wound. He growled, biting into her neck just as viciously. Every movement was like that, deliciously cruel. She scraped her nails down his back and he pulled on her hair. His fingers moved sinfully in tune with his pumping and she held him inside of her, squeezing, making him groan. Her teeth tugged at his bottom lip and his tongue mercilessly teased her breasts. He pushed into her with zealous and she moved her hips in painfully slow circles.

Her sweet mewling was like music to his ears; a symphony he wanted to hear forever. He held on for as long as he could to keep her going, to keep her calling out his name like she was on her knees praying before a cross. She could still sound like that—be like that, pure and alluring even as he pushed in and out of her, burying himself into her in a way that had her gasping a _fuckfuckfuck_. It had to be a sin, this, him and her, naked and connected, but Seth couldn’t bring himself to repent. Not when her eyes, for the first time since all of it had begun, did not look at him with resentment; she looked at him with complete adoration, like she was offering everything she had to him. And fuck, _oh, fuck,_ did Seth want to take it.

The grand, long-awaited moment of realization came after he woke up beside her, both still naked and tangled in limbs. She looked like a goddamn angel sent from heaven to save him. He could believe that, that she crossed his path to pull him away from darkness, to save whatever shriveled soul was left inside of him—except he had ruined her. He had found the angel and cut off her wings, thrusting her into the devil’s temple and let her faith be shattered. Then he stole her away again. He brought the damaged angel back for more sins. But that was the thing about Seth Gecko (about any fucking Gecko, really), he destroyed everything beautiful until it was nothing by dust.

He pressed a kiss to her forehead before climbing out of bed. After slipping on his clothes, he watched her for another long moment before forcing himself out of the room. He thought he could take a drive, get them food, convince himself that he was a no good, goddamn bastard and there was nothing wrong with having Kate in more ways than he already had. Every fiber of his being wanted to, but, fuck, he couldn’t. He thought back to how beautiful she was, how innocent she was, how goddamn noble she was even after all that time on the run with him. The only way she could remain so—the only way she could have a life that resembled to some degree the one she had left back in Bethel would be away from him.

He also knew his girl was smarter than to believe he would disappear without a trace, without so much as a fucking goodbye. She would follow him, hunt him down until they were face to face again. Kate was loyal. Even if she had never declared it out loud, Seth knew she would never leave him. So he had to be the one to cut the tie. _The kidnapper is releasing the hostage_ , he told himself as he snuck back into their room, a palm clutched into a fist as he packed all her things into her bag, shoving in a gun and a large portion of their score, too.

There was nothing he thought could hurt as fucking badly like when Richie left him for the goddamn Snake Queen. But he was wrong. Pushing Kate out the door—pushing her out of his life—broke everything she had mended in their seven months together. Darkness drowned his insides again.

Seth spiraled further into his addiction the following weeks. He told himself he finally gave in to his downfall, that the allure of the poison had finally won over every shred of self-will he had, but he fucking lied. He did not shoot up because he was powerless. He injected his bloodstream with any form of  narcotics he could get his hands on to _forget_   her. He drugged himself senseless to forget where he left her, where she would go, or how to find her. He did it so he would stay stuck in his own lonely shithole with no way out.

Four years had passed before he screwed someone else over.

To any passerby it looked like another deadbeat walked into a local tattoo shop to get his piece retouched, but Seth had been looking for fake documents to get him out of Mexico. He had exhausted the country and everyone in it. There was no more fear of his name. No one believed one Gecko was anywhere near as fucking intimidating as compared to two (even if Seth had a gun pressed to their fucking heads). He had robbed the same places, the same people, and revisited the same damn motels and dive bars. Everything was so fucking repetitive, Seth started to believe he was back in prison, serving another long sentence by himself while Richie was off being a crazy son of a bitch. He needed out of fucking Mexico. So he dug around, shook some people up, contacted old buddies, and heard of Sonja Lam and the underground scam she ran in the backroom of her tattoo shop. While most people were turning him away, Sonja did not care about his reputation or what he had done with his life since the public last heard of him. She just wanted her money, then he would get his papers.

Simple enough, Seth had fucking thought. He would just do one last job. He would rob a fucking prick terrorizing and abusing the pathetic stand owners of the mercado he frequented. Of course, there was a reason for his fucking codes. There was a reason why he stuck to businesses without taking to account people and circumstances—he wasn’t fucking Robin Hood, and the world came to bite him in the ass for thinking he was. It turned out the son of a bitch he robbed was more armed and backed-up than he thought. The fucker went after Sonja, shooting down her shop until it had nothing but flames remained. Naturally, Sonja was not going to let Seth slide with his fuck-up. She wanted the money he owed her for the fake documents and what it would cost to rebuild her shop, or else (she had warned with a knife to his throat) the Mexican Rambo he tried to rob would know exactly where to find him.

That was how after nine years (five in prison and four lost in Mexico) Seth got in contact with his good ol’ Uncle Eddie. Except he had not been the only one. Richie had made contact just as recently after years of doing who-the-fuck-knows with his fucking ball and chain (now a completely accurate description, Seth mused). Now that both his nephews were back (and so very fucking clearly pissed at each other) Eddie forced them into the same room before deciding if they deserved his help.

“What was wrong with the morning, Richard?” Seth had hissed at his brother as they met at a dive bar right after night had fallen. “Sunblock won’t help the burn?”

Still the same as the last time he saw him, Richie was tall, poised, and with that goddamn look of superior know-it-all in his blue eyes. It made Seth want to punch him all over again.

“Heard rumors you were in Mexico all these years,” was what Richie said as he ordered a round of shots for both of them. “I can smell the fucking tacos and desert on you still.”

“Yeah? Can you smell how many fucks I give right now, too?”

Richie grinned when he sensed Seth’s irritation spark up. He pushed a shot of whiskey in his direction; he raised it, clinking glasses out of old habit, and both knocked it back. “It’s funny,” he continued, his voice now lacking any sense of mock, his hand holding another shot glass with a tighter grip, “but you smell like her, too. Just before the stench of overcooked meth.”

“Like who, Richard?” returned Seth, ignoring the last bit of his comment.

“Like Kate.”

That was the first time in years the brothers locked eyes for a long, unbroken moment. There was rage (because there was always rage between the two), there was frustration, betrayal, love, loyalty, and misery. There were so many fucking open scars. Richie wanted to tally them up, to see who won in this brutal fucking war that life was, but Seth cleared his throat, shattering the moment.

“Eddie said you and Queen of the Damned were moving in on the browns. I know she makes you fucking crazy, Richard, but that is _suicide_. Even your new Wolverine healing skills won’t keep you alive if you start a war with them.”

“His name is Malvado. One of the Nine Lords of the Night. Santanico wants him dead and I want his operation.”

“And I want another fucking beer, but the service here is terrible,” grumbled Seth as he looked around the bar for a waitress. “I’m not signing up for that suicide mission, and I will be fucking damned if you drag Eddie into your murder-freak show.”

“Thirty million dollars, Seth. That is what’s in play if you agree to help.”

Seth choked on his own spit. “Thirty million dollars? As in the thirty fucking million dollars I already stole back in Abilene? You are shittng me.”

“Now it’ll be all yours without having to split with me and giving up a percentage to Carlito,” said Richie, rolling his eyes (because, really, they both had stolen that fucking money the first time around).

Seth took a deep breath, anger flaring up inside again. “You’re passing up on thirty-mil?”

“I’m thinking bigger, brother.”

“Bigger than thirty million dollars?”

“Yes. Now, are you in or are you out?”

Seth drummed his fingers over his knee, glaring at his brother. There was still something else Richie was keeping from him. The little shit might think he was high and mighty, better than his big brother, but Seth still knew the fucker like the back of his hand. No matter how much of that culebra bravado he wanted to flash around, he still knew when Richie was lying. His tell-tale signs were still the same: he adjusted his glasses at least three times.

“Why has it taken you four years to decide and strike now?” asked Seth instead.

Richie frowned, pressing his lips into a tight line for a second before saying, “We still aren’t. Not yet at least. There is something Santanico and me have been searching for all this time that we still haven’t found.”

“What? Fucking humanity?”

“A prophecy,” said Richie in irritation. “She heard of a prophecy once when she was in the Twister. It’s supposed to reveal who will bring down the Nine. She doesn’t want to hit Malvado without knowing how to bring down the others.”

“You’re telling me you have thirty million fucking dollars close enough to take from under some decrepit culebra, but you haven’t because your Snake Bitch heard a rumor a thousand years ago in her stripper joint? Jesus fuck, Richie. She really screwed with your head, didn’t she?”

Richie stood from the table after downing another shot of whiskey. “We find the prophecy before hitting Malvado’s operation. That’s the condition, Seth. So, I’ll ask again, are you in or are you out? Because it seems to me that you owe your new girlfriend money and you have burned all your other bridges. That’s why she left, isn’t it? _Kate_. Because of your drug problem?”

No matter how much he had promised Uncle Eddie, Seth still ended up beating the shit out of Richie.

The next two years were spent chasing dead-ends.

It was also a hostile two fucking years. Every other day Seth quit the mission before or after threatening to kill the devil’s wife (also known as fucking Santanico). He often came close to it, too, before Richie intervened with a fist to his jaw that resulted in yet another physical altercation between the brothers. If Seth was a third-party to this shitfest, he would have been fed up with them, too. Like they were children all over again, Eddie sat them down and tried to hash out the bad blood between them, but every time the conversation was pointless. Seth did not forgive Richie and Richie did not think he had anything to apologize for. Both were fucking wrong, Eddie told them, but both were too stubborn to realize just that.

Still, for thirty million dollars, Seth swallowed his pride and returned the following week for any changes. When there was nothing to report in weeks, sometimes even months, the Gecko brothers put aside their fucking differences and went out to do what they do best. Neither could see the thrill return to their eyes beside Eddie. No one else knew his nephews like he knew them. No one else knew what it was like to be part of a real team, to stand beside your brother and take back from the world what it had not yet taken from you.

Eventually, the culebras worshiping at their little fucked up goddess’ shrine brought with them whispers of Malvado’s restlessness. An ancient tablet had resurfaced from underground. Etched into it was a prophecy that foretold the Nine’s end of reign. Oculto, Malvado’s brother and Lord of Stories, was rumored to be the owner of it now.

When Seth and Richie hunted down Celestino Oculto after a month of searching the last person they thought to find in the bushes, cowboy hat and all, was Ranger fucking Gonzalez. The brothers had known the ranger absolutely fucking despised them (Richie killing his partner and Seth being a criminal that led him straight to the temple of hell), but there had been something else in his eyes that unnerved them.

“He knows more than he’s letting on, Seth,” Richie said into his ear when the four of them (the Ranger was with a hunter) split up after entering the ancient mansion.

“Would you just shut the fuck up for a moment, Richard?” hissed Seth. “There’s no fucking time for your crazy shit right now. We are in a Lord’s house and we need the goddamn tablet. Just because the Ranger and his _compadre_ let us go does not mean I’m up to sharing the information. Now, shut the hell up and help me look for this fucking thing.”

It was not long before the brothers (Ranger Gonzalez and his friend, too, as they were brought in at gunpoint) met Oculto. He was a real fucking creepy son of a bitch. He reminded Seth of the unhinged pedophiles in prison.

“The peacekeeper comes for the tablet,” said Oculto with a grin as he filled a glass with blood from a barrel over his cluttered table. “As it was prophesied.”

Seth glared. “Him? The fucking Ranger? That’s who the prophecy is about?”

“He’s slow,” Richie said with a sigh, sounding apologetic as Oculto became annoyed.

“Richard—”

“It’s not about the _rinche_ , Mr. Gecko. It was only foretold that it would end up in his possession as the peacekeeper of our two worlds. The prophecy is about three people.” He drank from his glass before snapping his fingers at one of his henchmen. A tablet hidden among his collection of antiquities was brought out. “Here is how the story goes: _Sun will rise and sun will set, and fate shall come to pass on its zenith. Those without a home will bind and grow. The twins will vanquish the Lords with help from the one born in blood and thorns and a broken womb. Her light is the key to end their eternal throne._ ”

“Twins?” hissed Seth. “What fucking twins?”

“The Mayan twins, of course,” grinned Oculto. “You and your brother are the ones prophesied to defeat the Lords of the Underworld. Or the Nine Lords of the Night. We are still really indecisive on names after all these centuries.”

“You son of a bitch!” Seth shoved Richie into the nearest wall, aiming a fist against his nose. “That’s the reason why you kept me around for two fucking years? You knew the goddamn prophecy was about us!”

Richie pushed Seth back. “I had a guess,” he said too nonchalantly for Seth’s liking. It took Oculto’s henchman to separate them. “I didn’t know the other part, okay? I was in the blind just like you were about that one.”

“It seems like the peacekeeper already knows who the third person is,” Oculto laughed, bringing the brothers back to the current situation. They all zeroed in on the ranger, his eyes darkening over.

There was no fucking time to get it out of the ranger when Malvado and his own culebras came to visit Oculto. After that it was all guns, fangs, arrows, and fucking things exploding all around them. Seth had barely kept himself out of the crossfire when Ranger Gonzalez (out of all the fucking people who could have spared him) pushed him into an empty room. Richie came tumbling in the next second, reloading his gun.

“I’ll cover you.”

“What?” demanded Seth with a laugh as picked up the crossbow he somehow ended up with.

“You and this crazy asshole both need to get out of here. You need to go to California, to my house. You need to find Kate!” he hissed as he was about to get interrupted again. “She’s the third person in the prophecy. Go to California and protect them, do you understand? _Protect them!_ ”

Just like the fucking cruel bitch she was, Fate had moved the events of the past six years so Seth and Richie could find Kate. As it was in his shitty fucking luck, Seth escaped one goddamn grenade to get hit by another when (would you fucking believe it, because he certainly can’t) his one night stand with her—that one night he spent four years giving himself an overdose to forget—produced a child. A little girl.

The time it took to hijack cars and sneak across the border to make it to California did not prepare Seth for what he was going to find. He did not give himself the chance to truly think that after six years of radio silence he was on his way to Kate. He knew if he thought back to the look of betrayal she had on her face when he slammed the door on her, he would fuck off right back over to Mexico and get lost another fucking six years so he would not have to deal with it. He was that much of a bastard—until he remembered the Nine Piece of Shit Lords would end up coming for her. If that prophecy was real, if Fate had really destined for the three of them to end the culebra reign, then that was another thing Seth had fucked Kate over with. He put her in the path of all this bullshit and he needed to make it right. For her.

He told himself that righteous crap over and over again, but when he first heard her voice, when he first saw her after six years, he knew he was lying to himself to put off the  unavoidable. Yes, he wanted to save her, to protect her, but a larger part of him needed to see her so something inside of himself could come alive again. Because after all that time he knew she had that power; to bring in her precious light and mend everything he had broken.

Then Richie pulled the girl out from behind the door and Seth couldn’t even fucking function. He couldn’t find his voice. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. That little girl with arms wrapped around Kate’s hips was his—was theirs.

“I’ll go with them,” Kate said to the ranger’s wife, her voice still a magnet to all of Seth’s senses, “and you will go to the base in Utah. You will be safe there. All three of you.”

“Three?”

“You’re taking my daughter with you, Margie.”

Control of his body then came back to Seth like lightning had just struck inside Casa Gonzalez, sparking him up with more rage than energy. He kicked the center table out of his path, pushing away the Ranger’s wife, too, and grabbed on to Kate with shaking hands. His unfocused mind wanted to dwell on her warm skin, on her bright, green eyes digging into his, just as fucking beautiful and inviting as always, and that smell of hers that was vanilla and strawberries, that was home and that he couldn’t fucking forget after six years of trying to, but the little girl’s face kept hitting and hitting his walls until all he could think about was her and how Kate wanted to leave her behind.

“Seth,” snarled Richie, suddenly appearing to push him back. Seth looked at his hands and then at the red marks on Kate’s arms. “Are you fucking crazy?” His brother pulled Kate into his chest, shielding her from him.

He hadn’t meant to hurt her. His mind was just not his now. When the little girl smashed past his barriers, she let everything that had once broken Seth apart to come out, too. His head filled with the endless beatings his father gave him, Richie’s crying at night that Seth couldn’t stop, the fire that burned down their house and killed their father, finding out Richie was the culprit of that, Richie leaving him, him leaving Kate—his mother leaving him and Richie.

“No,” he said with a fire burning deep in his chest. “You are not leaving my—you are not leaving her with some fucking strangers, do you hear me? We are not abandoning her.”

The goddamn cycle needed to stop.

“Katie,” called the Ranger’s wife from the background, her careful tone cutting across the pliable tension in the room, “he’s right. You can’t leave her here. You know her, she won’t be okay without you. And I swear, Katie, I would defend her with all that I have, but Billie would be my distraction. She needs her mother—both her parents,” Seth balled his fists, “to protect her. It’s the only way.”

Peeking from inside Richie’s embrace, Kate waited a moment before letting out a sigh. She pushed a hand to Richie’s chest to make him step back, to set her free (which he did after looking completely unwilling to). “Can you bring her here, please, Margie?”

The woman nodded, exiting the living room. Seth knew he should’ve been more wary of letting her go unattended (the fucking place being rigged with weapons and all), but Kate was looking at him again and he couldn’t form a thought.

“She doesn’t know about you,” her words were a fragile whisper.

“Vice versa, princess,” he said through clenched teeth.

Regret glistened in her eyes for a second. “All she knows is that sometimes...sometimes mamas and daddies can’t love each other enough and they need to go their separate ways, but...but it doesn’t mean her daddy didn’t love her.”

Mrs. Gonzalez appeared at the end of the hall with the little girl’s attached to her hand. When Kate called her over, the woman retreated back into the shadows. The little girl watched Seth and Richie carefully, curiously, and they let her mind wonder for what felt like a lifetime until Seth could find the will to speak.

“What’s her name?” he asked as he knelt down to the little girl’s height.

“Rose.”

Seth looked up at Kate; she bit her lip nervously, her cheeks red, her chest heaving—her tell-tale signs when she thought she did something he would disapprove of. It was how she looked six years ago when she took off that dress and threw it at his feet. Just like that night, he felt his heart stop.

“That’s our mother’s name,” said Richie, emerging from the background. His eyes were sharp, twisted, broken, when he looked at Kate, too.

“It’s a beautiful name for something that’s delicate and fierce at the same time,” she murmured.

Seth glanced down at the little girl—at Rose. His left hand trembled as it reached to touch her cheek. She did not recoil. She tilted her head to an angle, something in her blue eyes trying to drink him whole. “Did I...Did I scare you?”

The living room was disturbed and he had a gun out, but she still shook her head and Seth believed her. “Are you my mama’s friends?”

“One more than the other, apparently,” Richie inserted with a scoff.

Seth swallowed down a curse (he’ll kill his brother later) before taking a calming breath. “Listen, Rose, we’re going on a vacation, okay. Me, my brother Richie over there, you, and your mom.”

“For Christmas?” inquired Rose.

“Sure, sweetheart.”

“But mama and me are already going on a vacation for Christmas with my da—”

“Your _Nino_ Freddie needs us to meet him in Texas, baby,” Kate cut across Rose, clearing her throat as she squeezed her tiny shoulder. “It’s important.”

Rose turned from Seth to Kate. “Is Billie and _Nina_ Margie coming?”

Kate’s eyes filled with tears. Seth wanted to reach a hand over to hers, to lace his fingers through hers just as he had done so many times in the past when he felt strong enough to handle her weaknesses, but she had learned to do without his help. She inhaled deeply, holding it in for a second, before she knelt down beside Rose, too. No trace of tears was found.

“They’re not, baby girl. But I’ll let you in on a little secret,” Kate said with a big smile to distract the pout about to appear on Rose’s bottom lip. “You know how you’re birthday is coming up? Well, Billie and Margie are going to spend all the time we’re away decorating the house like a winter wonderland. Just how you wanted, remember?”

Seth could already see that his little girl was sharp. Her blue eyes reflected her detection of a lie (just as Richie had at that age when Seth gave him bullshit excuses as to where their mother had gone) but still smiled obediently at Kate. “Okay, mama.”

“How about I help you pack, kid?” offered Richie just as Seth had risen to his full height. “Bet my brother has a lot to say to your mom right now.”

Even before the Snake Queen had fucked with Richie’s head, he was not a person anyone warmed up to. If he barely inspired any sort of trust for a lonesome drunk girl with breathtaking impaired senses to have a fumble with him, there was no way in hell children thought he was safe. So when he extended a hand out to Rose, both Kate and Seth waited for her to shrink away from it. Yet, just like Kate had done back at the Dew Drop Inn (for some damn reason Seth didn’t understand then or now), Rose could see past the crazy. She took his hand, smiled real big, and tugged him toward the hall.

Although Seth wanted to think back to the last time he was alone with Kate, there was an ocean between them now. Everything in him that still bubbled with anger wanted to hurl out venom until she was curling against the wall, crying and feeling fucking terrible for ever crossing him, but it was not coming out. The shock was still numbing him, slowing him down. When he looked back at her, so close to touch, he didn’t know what to do with himself.

“I’m not sorry, Seth,” she spoke, reeling him away from the nudging desire that wanted to touch her.

“I know.”

“You left.”

“I know,” he repeated harshly, perfectly aware that despite being angry he had no fucking right to be. She was right, he did leave. He told her never to come back again. Now here they were; he couldn’t begrudge her what she had done with her life after he pushed her out of his.

“Whatever happened those six years back doesn’t matter anymore,” Kate continued without missing a beat, determination bright in her features. “What matters is Rose leaving this house with you and Richie at the lead. So swallow your pride, Gecko, and whatever you haven’t yet hashed out with your brother, and you make sure she comes before everyone and everything.”

“She already does,” he said to her retreating figure.


	7. Texas Hold'em Tricks

After losing everything she had at the Twister, Kate had only cried once in the following days since surviving it. She had been strolling through a mercado, losing herself in a different world that was not her own as she listened to the upbeat music that gathered a crowd to watch the performer belt out powerful notes while the drummer banged away. She wanted to prolong her time there, between the color and the laughter her life desperately lacked, but her world was a small, dark motel with a man that hated her. Every time she went into town on her own she contemplated leaving; it would be so easy to reach out to a patron who would take one look at her innocent, juvenile face and want to rescue her from the horror she was caught in. What forced the idea out was not knowing that she had nothing to go back home to, rather that she had _made_ the choice to be where she was. She had the keys to the RV, she could have stuck them into the ignition, twisted, and drove out of Mexico, but instead she saw Seth burst past the temple doors and he looked like a flash of hope covered in dirt and blood. She was the one that asked if she could ride shotgun on his way to nowhere because she did not need help, or God, or a do-over—she needed someone who had just lost everything alike her. She didn’t care that he was the reason why she was alone and broken because life had just taken from him everything he had taken from her. It was toxic, she knew, but paradise was not what her life would be if she drove off in that RV. So she returned back to Seth every time because she wanted to.

On one of those nights, Kate had opened the door of their motel room with one hand while her other held bags containing their dinner from whatever food shack they could afford to buy from. They weren’t necessarily in talking terms, but usually her entrance to the room (especially if she was the one that had left for food) would pull him from whatever task he was doing to keep his mind busy. When she had everything laid out on their crappy table she noticed that he still hadn’t moved from the bed. She had spent the last two weeks with him, she knew he didn’t sleep, so she walked over to him, nudging him gently. Nothing.

“Seth,” she muttered with another nudge.

She knew she should have walked away and leave him be, but something did not feel right in her chest. If he did manage a few minutes of sleep at night, he groaned, tossed and turned, or woke with a jolt. Now he was too quiet.

After inhaling once for courage, she grabbed his shoulder and turned him over. It was then that she saw the needles on her side of the bed and the blood dripping down his nose. She screamed. In real life, in the one before the Twister and vampires, Kate had never seen something like that other than in movies the church showed to warn the youth about drugs. In those films the users died of overdoses, and panic filled her chest.

He woke up from the sound of her scream. He bolted up, pulling out a gun from underneath the pillow and pointed at her, unaware of who she was or where he was for a moment in time. When his reality settled on him, he pointed the gun around the room, scouting for danger. After figuring out there was nothing he glared at her, stuffing the gun into the waistband of his pants.

“You’re on drugs now?” she accused loudly, her entire body shaking as she pointed a finger at the discarded needles on the bed.

“Lower your voice,” he hissed back, grimacing at the echo in his head.

“Are you stupid?” she bit back. “What’s that going to solve, Seth?”

He took a warning step forward. “Don’t you fucking worry about what I do with my life, princess. Okay?”

The frustration building in her chest finally won. He couldn’t see that filling himself with poison would only end up damaging _her_. Because Kate was sure he wanted to die, he wanted to escape their life in any way he could, and he wouldn’t care at all what became of her. She fell back onto one of the chairs, her palms covering her face as she cried. The twisted, miserable truth was this: she would have nothing without him.

“Jesus,” she heard him mutter from where he stood. “Get a grip, Fuller. There’s no room for fucking tears in this life, you got it?”

From that moment on Kate was forced to swallow back her tears every time something broke her already shattered heart. She wanted to hate him for it, for making her renounce the very emotions that made her human, but as the weeks turned to months and God continued to abandon her, she understood why he needed her to get tough. Feeling something too much weakened you. It’s what made Kate hesitate the first time a culebra had Seth in a chokehold with no way out. That God-fearing, everyone-is-worth-saving mentality could be the very reason her partner died. And whether either of them liked it or not, they _were_ partners. They needed to trust the other when going in to pull a job to continue taking on the world together.

After Seth left she thought she could get back in touch with her sensibilities, but a part of her did not want them back. Opening up that box meant another person would get to hurt her just as Seth had. But things had changed with time; she found Freddie and Margaret and she was blessed with a beautiful baby girl. Her friends accepted the real side to life that came with tears just as it did with laughter, and her daughter needed someone who embraced all the grey shades. Now those two parts of Kate collided and she didn’t know what was right for the moment.

“Who’s your favorite?” Richie asked Rose as he watched Kate pack a few things into the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles backpack.

“Michelangelo!”

“Why?”

“He likes pizza like me.” Richie scoffed at her response, making Rose giggle. “Who’s your favorite?”

“Easy,” said Richie, “Donatello. Let me tell you why, kid. Out of all his brothers—”

“Richard,” Seth walked into the bedroom with Margaret, “shut up, will you? Nobody cares.”

“Your kid just—” Richie stopped himself when Seth’s dark eyes narrowed at him.

Kate zipped up at the backpack and extended it to Richie. “Why don’t you and Rose have this conversation in the car? I just have to get my own things and I’ll be right there.”

Every adult in the room (including Richie) gave her a skeptical look. Certainly if there was anything Kate never thought she would do, it would be to ask Richie Gecko to distract her daughter. Still, she had asked, and for her, Richie was inclined to do anything.

“We put your things in the trunk already,” Margaret said as she left the doorway to approach Kate (there were tears down her cheeks already from hugging Rose so tightly before Richie led her out) “but Dark and Stormy over there doesn’t trust me being alone with you. Something about Gonzalezes and crossbows. I really hope Freddie kicked his ass back in Texas.”

Seth snorted, but didn’t comment. When Kate briefly glanced at him, he pulled out a cellphone from his pocket and gave it his attention.

Kate reached into her own pocket to pull out the engagement ring Benito had given her earlier that night. She had slipped it off when Richie had shielded her from Seth. She looked up again, and when he was still distracted with his phone, she grabbed Margaret’s hands and pressed it into her skin.

“Find Benito after we leave, Margie,” she whispered, forcing her friend’s eyes on her rather than on the ring. “Don’t tell him what happened here. Have him get you tickets for Utah and go underground with Billie. He and the other hunters will start looking for Freddie. Just like I will.”

Margaret shook her head gently, more tears down her cheeks. It stirred Kate’s own wave to form in her eyes. “Don’t worry about Freddie. Worry about your daughter. You have to protect her from all of this, Katie. You can’t be distracted.”

“I’m not going to abandon him. I...I already left a brother with the culebras, I’m not going to leave another.”

Margaret let out a small cry that made Seth look up at them. “I’m sorry for everything you’re losing tonight,” her hands squeezed around the ring, indicating to Kate what she was referring to. “You were so close.”

Although she had previously told herself to believe tears only weakened people, Kate felt them force their way past her lashes to land on her cheeks. She did not go to wipe them. Margaret was tough, willing to do anything for those she loved, but there was a truth among the friends that could not be ignored that made her own heart ache. Kate _was_ losing something that night: the last six years of her life. She would lose the home she had made with the Gonzalez family, the life in California as a caring nurse and weapons dealer, and the shiny future Benito had promised her. Because nothing in the vampire hunting business was certain—especially if it was you who the monsters were after.

The moment she climbed into the backseat of the sleek, black car with Seth and Richie Gecko directing her path was the moment she had to accept that nothing would be the same. If by chance they managed to defeat the Nine, Seth would still know that Rose was his daughter. He would never let Kate leave with her and not demand to be a part of her life. If things did not go accordingly, if Kate had to die to ensure no culebra touched a hair on her little girl’s head, then where would that leave Rose? She would not want her to remain with the Gecko brothers (even if one of them was her father). She would want Rose to go back with Margaret.

Again tears strolled down her cheeks as she looked out the window while Rose continued talking to Richie about cartoons. She was oblivious to Seth watching her through the rearview mirror.

Worst of all, the moment Kate let Seth strap Rose to the car seat was the moment she robbed her daughter of a better life. She had the chance to give her something normal, something she saw everyone else had and she didn’t. Although Rose was a perfectly happy child, she noticed the difference between other families and hers.

“Billie has a daddy,” Rose had said to Kate after her first day in preschool a year back.

“She does, yes.”

“Tucker has two daddies.”

“He does.”

“And Lucy has a new daddy.”

Kate focused on her ice cream cone for a moment longer, trying to decide if she should deviate the subject or address it. Ultimately, she sighed in resignation. The conversation would eventually come up sooner or later.

“Remember what I told you about your daddy?”

Rose nodded immediately. “He loves me, but he can’t be with me.”

“Exactly. Well, sometimes mamas raise their children without someone else helping them.”

“Why?”

“Because sometimes it hurts, baby.”

“But everyone needs a daddy, too.”

Kate laughed gently as she looked down to meet Rose’s blue eyes. “And some do end up getting a new daddy. Like your friend Lucy. And although he’s not her real daddy, that doesn’t matter because what makes a daddy is someone who cares, who protects, and loves her just like she was his own.”

What Kate failed to grasp about that conversation was that Rose had been searching for those things and found them in Benito. It was why she called him ‘daddy’. It had startled both of them (more Kate), but before she could correct her daughter, Rose had latched on to the word. Kate couldn’t take it away (not after Rose proudly declared, _‘you don’t have to do it alone anymore, mama._ ’)

She had made a mess of her little girl’s life and Kate could only hope she had enough time to fix it before the first wave of culebras hit.

Morning was brought by a fire in the sky when the car needed refilling just like Kate. After making sure her daughter was still asleep, she got out of the car and walked to the convenience store with Seth trailing after her. When she came out of the bathroom she saw what he was having rung up: Red Bull, ham sandwich, gummy worms, and a sudoku book. Her road trip essentials from back in the day. His was a frozen burrito and a bottle of liquor. He scanned the collection behind the clerk, but when his eyes met hers he cleared his throat and took the plastic bag without getting himself anything (there was no drinking and driving when your daughter was in the backseat).

Kate was inhaling the morning air while Seth filled the tank with gas. Richie was frowning in the passenger side, trying to adjust the car’s visor to keep the glare of the sun from blinding (or burning) him.

“We need to make a stop soon. She needs to stretch her legs, burn some energy, or the rest of this journey is going to be miserable.”

“We don’t have time for pit-stops, Kate.”

“One of the main things about parenting, Seth,” she looked up at him as she reached for the door handle after he pulled the gas pump from the tank, “is making time even when there isn’t any.”

They drove for four more hours before Seth pulled up to a small hotel in New Mexico. Richie raised an eyebrow, intent on arguing about the choice that would definitely delay them, but from the backseat Rose exclaimed, “Look, mama! Swings!”, and he stopped himself  from commenting.

“You drive to to the back and get us a room, Richard,” instructed Seth. “Kate and me will show Rose around.”

It was in silence that both watched Rose from a bench as she played with the other children in the playground across the hotel. Maybe he was biased (a whole lot, actually), but she was absolutely beautiful. Sunlight touched her face and her blue eyes glimmered like the ocean. He was not a man fascinated by the sea, but if it was as magnetizing as her gaze, he would sail on forever. Only a few hours had passed since he knew of her existence, but already Seth felt an indestructible tether connecting everything he was to her. There were only two people in this goddamn world he had been ready to die for, and she was now the third. For her, he knew, he would lay down his life if he could guarantee that smile would remain.

Rose stood by the monkey bars when a shadow cast over her piece of sunshine. She looked up and saw Seth smiling down at her.

“What’s the matter, sweetheart?”

Her tiny hands fiddled together. “I’m scared,” she admitted in a small voice, something like embarrassment and pride mixed in (what a Gecko trait to hate confessing defeat).

“What are you afraid of? Heights?”

She shook her head. “That no one will catch me if I fall.”

“Your mom would never let you fall,” he pointed out.

“But she’s all the way over there,” her finger gestured behind them. They turned; Kate watched them intently, apprehension loud in her emerald gaze that was more curious than it was wary.

“Tell you what, Miss Rose,” Seth said, returning his smile to the little girl, “you can count on me catching you if you ever fall.”

He outstretched a palm to her. His breath hitched as she examined his hand. He was afraid her first impression of him, guns and furious, would ruin everything before it began, but then she held on to his hand tightly and a part of him wondered if there was a God.

“Promise?” she asked.

“Promise.”

After a few hours in the playground, they found the room Richie had rented. He ordered a large selection of food for them ( _‘I was bored and needed my meal, too,’_ he said with a crooked grin that made both Kate and Seth frown thinking the delivery person now hosted two tiny holes on their neck) and ate until they were full. Rose climbed on to the bed when her mother allowed her an hour of cartoons, but fell asleep in the first ten minutes. Seth, on the chair beside her, followed pursuit.

Richie had been scanning the few books Kate had put into Rose’s backpack, quietly pointing out the inaccuracies of every tale, until Kate sighed, making him pause. They were sat on the foot of the bed, on the floor, close together.

“Where are we going, Richie?”

“Texas.”

“Yes, I figured that out before leaving California. I meant to what location specifically? It’s not like you two have a permanent residence unless you count the graves in some cemetery.”

“I have a place.”

“With Santanico? How’s that treating you?”

“Jealous, Katie?” She scoffed and he grinned for a moment before it faded out into shadows of gloom. “It doesn’t beat your little Mexican honeymoon with Seth.”

“It wasn’t a honeymoon and you know it.”

“Your sleeping daughter says differently, Kate.”

She took a deep breath before looking up at him. The room was in black and white, courtesy of the closed curtains, but the blue in his eyes flared in neon shades. She thought to the first time he looked at her: he saw through everything then, just as he did now. To him, she would never be a secret. It should terrify her, but she had long accepted the connection that formed between them, binding them. Because with Richie, no matter how much she tried, her soul was exposed, scars and all, and he thrived on it.

He knew she was bleeding out again. Maybe it had never stopped since the Dew Drop Inn. But there she was, a vessel of blinding light that was shattered on the inside. Anyone else would have burned out, extinguished and shriveled, but not her. Never Kate. She continued to shine with the intensity of the stars. He had never seen anything—anyone—like her. He never believed in saints and angels, but he believed in whatever kind of holy she was.

He didn’t know where they were headed when they hijacked the RV, or what awaited on the other side of the border, but all Richie had been certain of was that she was a part of him. Everything had moved to bring her into his life. She had been so sweet and innocent, so naive and broken, he wanted to seal her away, to keep her forever, but the culebras came and his path was laid out away from her. He thought she was lost to him the moment he left with Santanico, just like Seth, but those two collided and created a spectacular union that permanently linked Richie back to Kate.

Richie set the book in his hands aside to reach for a loose strand of her hair. Like that night in the backroom of the Twister, he tucked it behind her ear, holding her gentle gaze with his wild one. Back then her heart picked up in rate; he could hear it in the small distance that separated them, practically colliding against his chest and igniting his own. Now the rhythm of her heart was on neutral and his heart no longer beat.

She wasn’t his anymore. Not in the way she had been before he had abandoned his desires for her for the one who controlled his mind. It bothered him, he could not deny that to himself, but at least she was back. She was the guiding light in the treacherous night—and with what was coming, they would all need her to lead the way.

“Get some rest, Katie,” he said before pressing a kiss to her forehead.

He might not have her heart, but she was still a part of him. She was his family now.

Kate stood, about to crawl onto the bed next to her daughter, when her abdomened burned. She let out a hiss, her hand pressing against it. Richie gave her a questioning look, but she dismissed it.

When she closed her eyes she dreamt of betraying Freddie.

They were trapped inside a cluttered room while they endured screaming on the other side. He forced her to keep quiet, but terror had gripped her chest. Someone was being killed. No—someone was being destroyed on the other side of the door. When the agonizing cries stopped they waited for hours until they decided to go. There were ashes on the floor. A culebra had been killed. Kate hated that she felt saddened for that lost life (those screams still rang in her ears). Freddie was leading her out, back into the safety of daylight, but Scott and Carlos showed up.

 _Scott_.

Freddie gave her a crossbow. Kate knew it was not just to defend herself in the fight that was about to come, it was to aid her in killing Scott. She felt the urge—the promise—deep in her bones to shoot an arrow into her brother’s heart, but he looked so helpless and weak. He looked like that time he was nine and got so sick they had to call an ambulance and Kate cried the entire way to the hospital. She often forgot she was older than him; she was so used to him saving the day, being her knight on a shiny bicycle, that she stopped being strong for him. She held his hand as they prepped him for surgery after they deducted his appendix had burst, and she promised she would be right there waiting for him when he got back. The way his skin sizzled when the sunlight touched him, or how his face transformed into a vile creature’s, was not the outcome of an internal rupture, but it was a reminder of that promise. He was her little brother. She had to be strong for him.

So when she and Freddie barely made it out of that ancient mansion, her heart told her to go back, that she needed to save Scott, so she aimed a warning shot in the air to stop Freddie. His dark eyes met hers and she was torn; here was a man who protected her, trained her, gave her friendship, and she was throwing it all away for someone who didn’t want her.

 _True love is loving the unlovable_ , she told herself when she left Freddie handcuffed to his truck in order to travel with Scott and Carlos.

Despite having had wronged someone that trusted her, Kate did not question her choice. Not until two bullets enter her body.

She woke up covered in sweat. Her hand was still pressing against her stomach, her heart ricocheting against her bones. She exhaled, releasing the nightmare when a warm hand touched her cheek.

“Mama,” whispered Rose, “where are we?”

As her fear settled, giving her her senses back, Kate noticed her surroundings. They weren’t in the hotel anymore. That room had been decorated in generic shades of brown and beige, but this new place was dark, grimy, freezing, and smelt of iron. They were on a blood-red bed at the center of a long, abandoned cell.

“Wait here, baby,” she said to her daughter, pressing a reassuring kiss to her forehead just before reaching for her bag at the end of the bed.

Kate slowly unzipped the bag, sliding her hand in, searching for her gun, when she turned the corner. There was a buzz of chatter that she quickly recognized as Seth and Richie bickering back and forth.

“...all this time, Seth? Be a fucking man.”

“Shut the hell up, Richard.”

“ _Sissy_.”

Kate appeared before Seth aimed a punch at Richie’s face. They turned to her, one hesitant and the other smiling. “Where are we?”

Seth groaned in frustration, shaking out his hands as if it physically pained him not to assault his brother. “Richie’s place,” he ground out.

“What?” demanded Kate, frowning now as she walked closer to them. “I thought that was a joke!”

“Well, we were going to our Uncle Eddie’s, but Seth decided to take another detour.”

“ _Why_?”

“He lost his balls somewhere between California and Texas.”

“Richard,” warned Seth.

Kate stepped in front of him, blocking him from Richard and a potential fight he looked very eager to start. “This is no place for a child. There’s a giant prison cage with torture devices right there,” she gestured to opposite end of the room. “We are not staying here.”

“Hey, you got a problem with the home decor, Fuller, talk to Richie and his Snake Bitch. Whatever they get up to on their alone time is on them. As of right now, this is all we got so stop complaining.”

She was not as tall as Seth, but Kate still straightened out her back, planted her feet firmly on the ground, and stared him down in a version of his intimidating stance. “How are you going to explain all of this to your daughter?”

It was the first time Kate even suggested Seth had any claim in that tiny being named Rose. He could not even bring himself to think about it in his head, call himself her father, but he was. _He was_. That possessive, over-protecting love in his chest was proof that he was just as her entire presence confirmed it to the world. He was responsible for another life, one that was half of him and half of Kate. There would be no tough love like he gave to Richie when they were boys; his little girl was too pure for that. Kate was right, she couldn't stay in Richie and Snake Queen’s lair of fucking evil.

There was just one problem...

“Ah,” mused Richie when the warehouse’s gate opened and a black Camaro entered, a motorcycle following after it. “Here comes the explanation.”

The bike came to a stop first.

Impossibly beautiful and cruel as ever, Santanico removed her helmet and narrowed her eyes at the Gecko brothers as her usual form of greeting before she flashed that dark gaze at Kate. The latter’s hand retracted in her bag, she could see, but that did not stop Santanico from grinning at her. The girl was still a _guerrera_ hiding beneath angel wings and a halo.

Kate grew rigid, her body drenching in high-alert from being in Santanico’s presence again. The part of her mind that was corrupted with resentment— _hatred_ —wanted to pull out her gun and deposit every last bullet into her chest. Santanico was responsible for releasing the culebra plague back in the Twister after luring the Geckos to Mexico. While Kate could not forgive the chaos her desires brought, she also knew it was the brothers that made the choice to kidnap the Fuller family. Everything that happened to her was a consequence of that. To hate Santanico, to give in to the murderous rage inside her, Kate knew was also to hate the Gecko brothers. And she really did not hate them (most of the time).

She inhaled past her nostrils, trying to compose herself, to figure out a quick way not to give in to revenge, when two people exited the car.

One of them was a woman, brown hair and brown eyes, that leaped into Seth’s arms. She clung on and he squeezed her waist.

_Oh._

Kate had moved on with someone else, how did she not think Seth had done so, too. Not that there was anything to move on from on his part, right? Kate was just a girl he traveled with after his brother abandoned him; she was just a momentary partner to rob locations and kill vampires with until he realized he did not need her—did not want her and pushed her out of his life to look for something he would let himself have.

Richie placed a hand on her shoulder, reeling her away from the fury boiling in her blood.

“Where the hell were you?” demanded the unknown woman, smacking Seth’s chest just after she pulled away.

“ _No le dijo?_ ” Santanico smirked, looking up at Richie, malicious glee on her face. When Richie shook his head, chuckling low, she added, “ _Pobre pendejo._ ”

Seth flipped the two culebras off before looking back at the woman. “We’ll talk about this later, okay, Sonja?”

“The hell we will,” hissed the second person Kate did not know. He was an older man, white haired, gun in his hand, but something about his eyes made her want to smile. He reminded her of her grandfather, a grumpy man whom she loved despite nothing ever pleasing him.

“Eddie—”

“We drove all the way to that crazy son of a bitch’s mansion and found nothing but gravel. Place was destroyed, and these ladies thought you two were scattered confetti. I was not about to pay for another goddamn funeral, you shits.” He was still glaring at Seth when he pointed a finger at Kate. “Who is this?”

“This is Kate,” Richie introduced.

“You fucked off to who-the-hell-knows-where for a Girl Scout?” Eddie then turned to her. “Kate, that's your name, right? Well, Kate, I'm sorry these boys dragged you all the way over here, but we ain't buying cookies. You can leave now.”

Seth groaned again, cursing under his breath once. “She's not a—She's not leaving, Eddie.”

“Seth, what is going on?” Sonja raised a questioning brow.

“Kate is a friend,” he said hesitantly.

“You think now is the time for fucking tea parties and catch ups?” snapped Eddie. “Unless she can get us thirty million dollars, she needs to go. This ain’t no child care center.”

“Actually,” Richie began, “she's what we’ve been looking for. Kate is who the prophecy is about—”

“Thirty million dollars?” she cut across him, stepping away from his hand. “What thirty million dollars?”

While Richie lost his shit-eating grin to mask it with his poker face and Seth grimaced, cursing under his breath again, Santanico expanded her smirk. “You are all so full of secrets. You with your little Californian surprise, Kate, and _los hermanos_ with their Texas Hold’em tricks. Did they not tell you why we were hunting for the prophecy?”

“Richard,” hissed Seth, “I'm going to shoot your master in the fucking face if she doesn't shut up.”

“They're pulling a job,” Santanico said before Richie could tell her to hold off. “Thirty million dollars is their pay after we find and I kill Malvado and they dismantle his operation.”

Kate turned from Richie (who looked her right in the eye, but gave her nothing) to Seth (who turned away, finding his shoes more interesting in that second). She saw red. The fury from before stirred a tsunami inside of her now.

She should have known. God, she _did_ know. Never trust a Gecko. Let alone two.

Kate pulled out her gun and shot.


	8. For the Fairies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like Kate might be a little OC in this chapter. I don't know. Something about it didn't satisfy me. Either way, I hope you guys like this. Also, Merry Christmas Eve Eve! (Points for the Friends reference). I wish you all a lovely Christmas/Holidays in the days to come.

If there ever was a need to form a necessary alliance with someone in this twisted game they were all playing, Santanico Pandemonium would never have been Kate’s first choice. Nevertheless, the rules changed, as did the players and the setup, and it was time for a power shift. And the only way to have the upperhand in all of this, in order to come out unscathed, was for Kate to swallow her grudge and partner up with the woman who brought only destruction.

Santanico never expressed any form of verbal compliance with Kate’s choice, but she still returned that first night when the moon was high over the midnight sky dressed for the part of vicious trainer. Perhaps it was curiosity to see what she was made of, what she was capable of becoming after handing Santanico her pride—whatever it was, it surprised her. And nothing surprised Santanico after a thousand years of living.

Kate was petite in comparison to Santanico’s statuesque form, but the first punch she aimed packed weight. It made Santanico stumble back, eyes wide before they flashed yellow and she launched for the attack. It was her experience that no human could keep up with her, but Kate did. She lasted four minutes within the fighting perimeter, one punch and kick after another, before Santanico jabbed into her chest and she fell on to her back, hissing from the pain.

Richie had been watching from a short distance, absentmindedly sharpening tools, glaring at the situation from the moment Santanico appeared, hair tied back and face free of her fancy makeup. He had warned— _forbidden_ her from giving in to Kate’s stupid request, but with one pointed finger, Santanico reminded him there was nothing any man could forbid her from doing. He was protective of the girl, she could see, but he was also afraid of _her_ , afraid of what she could do to his head, so he backed off with gritted teeth. Now he stepped away from his worktable, stretching out a hand with intent to help, but Kate slapped it away as she got back on her feet.

“Kate,” he breathed as she glared at him, fury turning her bright eyes dark.

“Unless you want to fight me, get the hell out of my way, Richard.” When he stepped back, jaw clenched, she gave Santanico a firm look. “Again.”

Santanico grinned before throwing an uppercut.

There was something tragically beautiful about an angel transforming into a beast. They all saw that undeniable truth the moment Kate pulled the trigger two nights ago.

The bullet had scraped by its target when Richie pulled Kate’s arm down. Although it deviated, Seth still fell to his knees, clutching on to his shoulder.

“Are you insane, bitch?” shouted Sonja as she bent to help Seth.

“Easy. It’s just a flesh wound,” Richie defended despite wrapping his arms around Kate to lock her in.

“Jesus fuck,” Seth yelled, pulling his palm away from the torn skin to expose the collecting blood. “You shot me, Fuller!”

“You asshole!” Kate snarled in return, struggling against the imprisoning hold Richie had around her. She kicked the heel of her boot against his knee twice, earning a groan from him, but he did not budge. “I'm going to kill you—both of you! Let me go, Richie!”

“Mama?”

Richie possessed the strength to stop anyone that came his way, but he knew he would never get Kate to calm down before she did something she would regret (again, _if_ she regretted shooting Seth, that is). But out came the daughter from one of the chambers in the warehouse and Kate suddenly froze.

All eyes were on little Rose as she rubbed her sleepy eyes trying to adjust to the bright lights. She had heard shouting from the room her mama made her wait in, but when she heard the loud noise echo against the walls, she couldn't stay there anymore.

“What happened to Seth, mama?” Rose noticed the bleeding for a moment before her attention went to the giant cage. “Are we at a zoo?”

“Seth,” Sonja muttered, her eyes wide as she glanced from the little girl to the man forcing himself back on his feet. “Seth, she looks like you.”

Kate broke away from Richie’s hold while Seth struggled to find the words to explain. She slyly offered her gun to him, too, before moving to her daugher. She scooped her up in one go, pressing her face against the crook of her neck to block her view from the foul surroundings.

“We’re leaving now, baby.”

“Kate,” Seth took a step forward that was instantly mirrored by Richie, “You can't leave. Look, let me explain—”

“Explain what?” she hissed, every line of her face expressing the betrayal she felt deep in her chest. “How all of this is another get-rich scheme conducted by the Gecko brothers?”

“It's not like that!”

“Isn't it?” Kate returned when he tried to defend himself. Seth faltered for a second, his eyes on Sonja before looking back at her. “You had me fooled, Seth. Both of you. But like always this is all about what you two want without giving a damn about anything or anyone else.”

“Things changed,” he emphasised with a gesture to Rose.

“You’re going to start a war for thirty million dollars and a revenge that isn't yours. You dragged her,” Kate nudged her head to Sonja, “and your Uncle Eddie into this knowing perfectly well what happens when you mess with these people. Now you are putting my _daughter_ in the crossfire, too? How do you expect me to believe things are different when this is not the first time you drag a girl to hell for your own selfish needs.”

It was not the loss of of blood that turned Seth pale; it was the reminder. The very reason why he had forced Kate out of his life in the first place.

Kate felt the anger become venom inside her, pooling into her mouth until she had no choice but to release it. She wanted to grovel in his miserable, guilty gaze, but the memories of their time together reprimanded her. She knew how it twisted his insides being reminded of the horrible things he had done, but that was the truth. It was _his_ truth. He couldn't escape it, nor could Kate lessen the magnitude of his sins. Not when the life of their daughter counted on him seeing the error of his ways.

Kate settled Rose back on to her feet, taking one of her little hands as she walked her a few steps closer to Santanico.

“Baby,” she began carefully, “this is San—”

“Kisa,” Santanico said.

“Kisa. She's Richie’s girlfriend—”

“Friend, _if that_ ,” Santanico corrected.

Richie rolled his eyes.

“Kisa,” said Kate, her jaw clenching slightly as she tried to hold on to her reassuring smile, “this is Rose.”

Rose blinked up at Santanico. A curious little thing, she studied the woman before her for a few seconds before blushing pink. “You're pretty.”

Santanico stared back, perplexed, then a smile of her own melted over her red lips. She knelt before her, touching the tip of her little nose. “Not as _hermosa_ as you, _pequeñita_.”

“ _Gracias_ ,” giggled Rose.

“She speaks Spanish?” Santanico questioned, a sharp brow raising up as she looked at Kate.

“My da—”

“Kisa is going to take you back to the room while I take care of something, okay?” Kate cut in.

Rose looked away from Santanico to Seth. “Are you going to fix him, mama? Just how you fix other people?”

“I don't know if I can fix him,” Kate said as she gave Rose’s hand to Santanico, the underline of her voice threatening to everyone’s ears but her daughter’s, “but I'll try.”

Seth blocked Santanico’s path. His hand hid the bullet graze on his shoulder as he glared her down. She returned it, just as intense and full of disdain. It was only when Rose’s blue eyes peered up at him, too, confused, that he stepped aside.

When they were out of earshot, he turned to Kate. “You just sent Rose off with the fucking Snake Queen. And you're preaching about stupid choices?”

“Santanico’s the only one who hasn't lied to me,” she bit back, determined not to let the obvious insanity of what she had just done sink in. “As of right now I trust her more with Rose’s life than anyone else here.”

“Wait a fucking minute!” Eddie pushed his way into the center, commanding attention. “Are you fucking saying that little ray of sunshine back there is your daughter, Seth?”

“Yeah. And she doesn't know that, Uncle Eddie, so if you can keep it down,” grunted Seth as he reached for a discarded rag on a worktable nearby to clean up the blood.

“This girl—”

“Kate,” supplied Richie when his uncle stammered slightly.

“—is the mother?” Seth nodded firmly. “She's goddamn twelve years old, you cradle-robbing piece of shit!”

Seth groaned when Eddie punched his wounded shoulder. “She's not twelve! She's twenty-three!”

Eddie aimed his fist at Seth again. “Was she twenty-three when you knocked her up?”

“It was consensual!”

Richie snorted at his brother’s defense.

“No wonder she shot your dumb ass!” Eddie hissed. “The moment you found out about this everything fucking changed, Seth. _Everything_!”

Seth gritted his teeth. “I know, Eddie. But everything happened so goddamn fast. I haven't wrapped my head around it, so can you fucking blame me for not having everything figured out yet?”

“There's nothing to figure out,” said Kate as she intended to head after Santanico and her daughter, but Richie grabbed her wrist to keep her in place again.

“The prophecy says we stick together,” he told her.

“I don't care about some prophecy.”

“Fine,” conceded Richie instantly, “the prophecy doesn't matter. You matter. We're here, the three of us, and as long as we stick together we ain't going to let you get hurt.”

“Are you going to give up the thirty million?” Kate asked, staring him dead in the eye before giving Seth the same look.

“It's not that simple, Kate,” Seth sighed.

“It is, actually. You're saying thirty million dollars is worth risking my life and our daughter’s.”

“Don't,” he warned her, marching over to tower his body over hers. “Don't fucking put words in my mouth. I said it wasn't simple, not that I'm not going to try my goddamn best to make sure no one harms you, Kate. You or Rose. I am going to do right by my little girl.”

Kate wanted to believe him. Everything inside her want to sing at his words, but she could not gamble Rose’s safety when Seth and Richie Gecko were playing the game, too.

“You want to do right by her? Then choose your money and disappear. We had a life before you showed up, Seth, and Rose was happy—she was _safe_.”

Plans of her departure immediately sparked in her head when Richie let go of her. She had survived six years without a Gecko tailing her, she would be fine this time around, too. She had Benito and the other hunters. They would be willing to lay down their lives for Rose. Kate tried not to think how that was not a sacrifice she could ask the hunters to make, but Santanico brought back a secret to the surface she could not afford to obscure.

“You shine like the moon and the stars, Kate,” she murmured when Kate walked into the chamber. She was sitting beside Rose (who had earphones in as she gave her focus to her tablet), lightly running her fingertips through her brown hair. Kate felt a burst of fear enter her system when she locked in on the scene. It was like watching her daughter be at the mercy of a beast. “That’s what looking at your light is like. But the moment I laid eyes on your _niñita_ , it was like being blinded by the sun.”

Her first instinct was to deny her claim, but Kate knew Santanico saw through everything. “Richie knows, too, doesn’t he?” she said instead.

“Subconsciously, _tal vez_ ,” Santanico smirked, her dark gaze glittering. “He’s so overwhelmed by your own light he hardly notices anything else.”

“Lay out thirty million dollars and he’ll get distracted. Just like Seth,” she said, so obviously upset she thought Santanico would laugh, but a frown shadowed over her sharp, exotic features.

“I hate to say this, but Seth’s right. Things aren’t that simple. It’s not just about the money, it’s about destroying Malvado and his flesh business.”

God forgive the next words that left Kate’s lips. “I don’t care about an evil culebra lord or his human cargo. Not when my daughter’s life is on the line. Seth and Richie, they are so easily seduced by power, by money—I can’t trust them to make the necessary call when they’re so eager to find any loopholes so they can take everything. Sometimes, Santanico, you just don’t get it all.”

“I know,” she returned slowly, her eyes narrowing. “I have lived a thousand years knowing that life is unjust and cruel. _Los hermanos_ are bastards, yes, but they care about you. And whether you like it or not, you are their family now. This _belleza_ here, your Rose, made it so. They will protect both of you with everything they have.”

Tears burned in Kate’s eyes. “My light won’t work to complete this prophecy you’re hell bent on making come true. I can vow to fight, to get as close as I can get to kill every last Lord that threatens my life and my daughter’s, but how can I be sure she is safe from _you_? How do I know you won’t sacrifice her to get what you’ve been waiting centuries for?”

Santanico glanced down at the child when she giggled at the tablet; Rose gifted her a toothy smile before looking back down at her lap. Santanico’s eyes flashed yellow for a brief moment before they were back to their bottomless brown, tears gathering.

“I used to have a beautiful life. I had a family that loved me, a man...a man so brave and true that adored me, but there was a cruel devil that became obsessed with me. He killed everyone...he killed Kisa so he could have Santanico forever.” She raised her chin, forcing her composure to come back out, “I am not going to take from either of you what Malvado took from me.”

There was a difference between the Nine Lords and their culebra spawn, Kate knew. While she had expertise killing the latter, the Nine would not go down as easily by piercing wood into their system. They were centuries old. The originals. You didn’t kill the devil the way you would kill his demons. If Kate was going to stay, then she would need to learn how to destroy the Nine. And the only one who could teach her that was Santanico.

Kate sidestepped her kick, allowing her to aim her elbow into her ribs thrice before pushing her down to her knees. She pulled out the ancient blades Santanico had for the special, impending occasion, pressing one against her heart while the was on her back.

“Took four tries,” Santanico teased through gritted teeth, “but you’ve got it.”

Clapping echoed around the cold warehouse before Santanico could remind Kate where she needed to cut to take out the snake within the Lords. They turned and saw Seth and Sonja entering past the metal gate.

“You two best friends now?” he sneered.

Santanico pushed Kate off, taking a step toward him with an intent to rip out his throat before Richie said, “Found anything useful?”

“There’s a club owned by a man named Nathan Blanchard where the girls are auctioned off to the highest bidder,” informed Sonja after turning her annoyed frown from Seth to his brother. “After that it’s a take-all for Malvado and the other class-A perverts.”

“It’s also the last place where Narciso took hostages from,” Seth added. “Our source says it’s likely Ranger Gonzalez was among them.”

“Freddie? Are you sure?”

Kate’s light burned a level higher when hope invaded her soul; Richie almost followed after her as she absentmindedly walked closer to Seth, taking the small towel he was offering for her to use. Her fingers touched his for a moment, and Richie knew that although Seth couldn’t see her glow, he could definitely feel it.

“There’s a chance, princess,” he told her quietly. “I can’t promise it was him, or that they’ll keep him alive much longer.”

“We need a plan to get in,” Sonja cleared her throat, breaking the fleeting connection between the two. “If we want to know where Malvado is hiding, we need to follow the flesh.”

“We can hijack a truck with the cargo,” said Richie immediately. “Get in that way.”

Kate frowned. “If we can stop an evil man from selling these girls, why not set them free?”

The others exchanged looks before Richie said, “Because we need something to offer.”

“It won’t work if the girls are afraid,” Santanico pointed out, arms crossing over her chest. “They will be too busy trying to save their lives to keep an eye out for us. We need a decoy among them.”

“Is that an offer?” Seth leered with hate again. “Because you don’t exactly fit the role considering Malvado has posters out for you all around fucking Texas like you’re his lost bitch that escaped the chain when he wasn’t home. Which, technically, sums up the situation just right, doesn't it?”

Santanico hissed, exposing her fangs.

“What about me?” Kate surprised even herself when the words came out at the same time she moved to hold onto Santanico’s elbow, keeping her from hurting Seth.

His glare was on her now. “No fucking way,” he snarled at her. “No fucking way you’re going in there, Fuller. You hear me? _No_.”

There was once a time when Kate followed Seth’s orders without questioning them (most of the time). He was her partner. He had been around longer in this criminal lifestyle; he knew which situations would not play out in their favor. She always thought she could handle herself just fine, but the fear in his eyes from everything that could go wrong always steered her away from pressing the matter. That same dread was back in his eyes now, taking over his system, but this time she was not willing to back down.

“Santanico can shapeshift into someone else, but if we are going in undercover, she needs to serve as backup. We can’t offer her as bait. And I will not ask Sonja,” the name did not sit right on Kate’s tongue with the jealousy it produced, “to put her life on the line for this. I’m the only choice.”

“She’s right,” Santanico said. “Kate would know what to look out for. Not to mention that light of hers—well, just look at what she does to evil men. Every _diablo_ in there will want her.”

“You shut the hell up,” Seth growled. “You don’t get a fucking say in this.”

“And you do?” Kate demanded with a huff.

“Why the hell do you trust Viper Yoko Ono, Fuller? She knows damn well this is fucking suicide and she doesn’t care!”

“Because she’s been honest with me,” Kate reminded him sharply. “I know she doesn’t care about me and I know where that leaves me. Meanwhile I never know where I stand with you and Richie. I _won’t_ walk in there thinking you two have my back and then find myself abandoned because something better came along.”

There it was. Seth’s betrayal laid out before him at last. Kate’s undeniable hatred stemmed from his leaving her alone in Mexican. Hell, he did not forgive himself for it no matter how many times he told himself he did right by her. But he didn’t, did he? She was pregnant when he left her. She had to figure out everything on her own. He was her partner, for fuck sakes. He was the last person she had left that was willing to go to the end of the world for her—to die for her—but he had forsaken her inside the same nightmares that plagued him. If he could not trust Richie with his life after he left with the Snake Queen, how could he expect Kate to do so with him? After six years, Seth was still a no good, goddamn bastard. But he did not want to be.

When Kate had decided to stay alongside the Geckos and the poor souls they recruited, she made a condition that the environment had to change for Rose’s sake. No one objected; not even Santanico as Richie hid her arsenal of weapons and torture cells in strategic locations so he could fill the open spaces with furniture to mimic a home. Only until everything was acceptable did Kate allow Rose to step out and socialize. Although it made Kate uneasy, Rose had taken a liking to Santanico ( _‘Kisa looks like that lady from the novela you and Nina Margie watch, mama,’_ she said with giggles as she played with Santanico’s hair) and the same could oddly be said for the latter. The parts of Kate that were molded by the church tried to understand Santanico’s pain: she was an innocent torn from her life in order to do the devil’s bidding, and just because she had been forced to be evil—to endure evil—did not mean her soul was completely tarnished. Still, Kate was apprehensive. As was Seth. He lived with Sonja back at Eddie’s place, but when Kate made the choice that Richie and Santanico’s lair would be her momentary hideout, he left for a bag of his necessities and decided he was staying, too ( _‘Get used to seeing my face, Bride of Chucky. As long as my daughter is near you, I’ll be shadowing your every move.’_ ).

Seth, Richie, and Santanico did their best to behave like model citizens when Rose was around. It pained all three to refrain from threatening to kill each other every other minute, but it brought Kate a strange sort of entertainment to watch them squirm. All of them had done terrible, unforgivable things, had looked at people twice their size in the eye and told them to fuck right off, but one look at a little girl who was barely four feet tall, and they shrunk back and did anything to appease her.

It was how Richie ended up buying a stack of books about agriculture when he tried to justify the cage filled with sharp tools Rose had seen as him liking to farm ( _‘The cage kept the cows from getting sick when it rains,’_ he said unconvincingly, earning him a loud snort from the others). He needed to get the terminology just right, as well as to know exactly how a successful harvest would come about if Rose ever asked him to show her. Santanico frequently called him an _estupido_ for his imminent purchase of cows when Rose asked to see them, but she, too, gave in to anything to justify her story when Seth called her _diosa_ (instead of killing him to stop him from ever doing it again). She told Rose she was once an actress ( _‘Si, nena, like in the novelas’_ ) and her character was a false goddess from ancient times; as such, she brought a giant bag filled with costumes and wigs and makeup to give her credibility. Seth had gone as far as buying a jungle gym and swing set for the little girl. He spent an entire night building it where the cage had once been, anxiously waiting for her to wake up and see it. When her little mouth formed into an ‘o’ shape and she ran up to hug him—really hug him, arms tight around him, squeezing with her share of strength—he almost stumbled back and got lost in a daze. Kate warned him against buying her more things, but he hardly cared to listen. He bought her a bicycle the following day.

“She looks just like he did at that age,” Eddie said to Kate as he sat beside her on the couch, handing her a cup of fresh coffee as they watched Seth attempting to teach Rose how to ride the bicycle. Sonja laughed beside him, encouraging the little girl, too, as she snapped pictures with her cellphone. “Only difference is Seth was never as happy as your little girl.”

Kate blew into the cup, choosing to remain silent. She had known fragments of what childhood had been for the Geckos, and those were enough to know what darkness lived in those years.

“You did good, Katie-Cakes,” she smiled at this, something like nostalgia making her eyes burn when his tone reminded her of her father. “There was never anything these boys thought they could have that would make them want to leave this life of professional thieves,” he then said, crushing the moment, “until you came into their lives. Seth especially. He’s stubborn as mule, that one, but he means well. Everything he has ever done was for his own gain, but also for Richie’s. That boy loves his brother no matter how much he hates him. Now he loves Rose. Damn, does he love her. Look at that idiot. He’s bewitched.”

Rose pouted at the now disregarded bike. She was frustrated at being beat by it. Seth immediately knelt before her, taking her hands into his, and smiled big and reassuringly at her; it reminded Kate of how her own father used to look at her when she gave up on something before conquering it. There was a lesson on perseverance that needed to be taught, and Seth was taking the reigns as responsible parent. He convinced her to get back on the bike, his hands on the seat to steady it before she attempted to peddle again.

“I’m not asking you to forgive him,” Eddie added as Kate smiled gently at the scene. “The son of a bitch probably doesn’t deserve it, but his redemption is in that little girl, Kate. In her he has the one thing he never got: a chance to be a good man.”

A week after Seth and Sonja had brought in information on Nathan Blanchard and his illegal bidding club, everything was now set to be executed. They had acquired their merchandise ( _‘Please stop calling those girls that, Richie,’_ ) from an awful man Kate felt no remorse ended up dismembered to get an in with Blanchard. The invitation was delivered and the star of their show had been primed from head to toe.

The first thing Kate did was take a scalding shower to melt away the indecisiveness of her choice before putting herself in Santanico’s hands: she let her pull her long, brown hair into an elegant curly updo, letting stray tendrils frame her face, she feathered brushes over her skin, applying makeup from the collection she had brought in for Rose to play with, and helped her slip on the perfect dress that had taken Santanico a week to find.

Now she stood before a full-length mirror in her temporary room, her heart pounding in her chest, bruising her bones in fear of the reflection that stared back at her. Her green eyes were defined with a feline black, her lips were painted with an innocent, alluring pink, and her skin had been dusted in fragrant shimmer to enhance the light within. The dress disturbed Kate the most: it was gold and tight. A floor-length, strapless design with a sweetheart neckline made up of thousands of multi-shaped gems resembling snake skin. It clung on to her figure like it had been painted on ( _‘It was made to be irresistible,’_ Santanico had said).

“ _Whoa_ ,” came an intake of breath behind her. From the reflection of the mirror she saw Seth, stunned, holding on to Rose’s hand, stray wet strands of hair clinging to her cheeks.

While Santanico had been grooming Kate, she had charged him with bath time. He had been afraid he would drown her by accident, get shampoo in her eyes, or somehow destroy the floating swan Uncle Eddie had gotten Rose and she was so fond of, but he knew she needed him to step up so he did as he was told.

Kate turned to them, trying to muster courage to smile at her daughter dressed in a cow-spot onesie Richie had gotten her when everyone had drawn a line on real cows being brought to the warehouse. It was her third night wearing it because it made Richie laugh, and Rose was somehow very inclined to entertain him just as he was on teaching her how to grow her own carrots ( _‘But never cauliflower, right, Richie? I hate cauliflower. Bleh!’_ ).

“Mama,” breathed Rose, her blue eyes wide with fascination. “You look so pretty! Doesn’t she, Seth? Doesn’t my mama look pretty?”

Seth pressed his lips into a tight line, his jaw clenching slightly at the corner while his eyes grew dark and heavy. He was looking at her the same way he in their rundown motel in Mexico, back when she stood before him in her bra and panties and completely willing to give him her all. Kate felt the oxygen traveling up her chest hitch in her throat; just like that night, more than fear and excitement licked up her skin.

“Are you going to a ball, mama?” Rose asked excitedly, breaking past the moment of illusion Kate and Seth were caught in.

Kate cleared her throat, pushing away what she hoped was just a memory filled with desire as she moved to pull Rose up to her arms. “Yes, baby. Something like that,” she lied when she grazed the tip of her nose with hers.

Rose laughed joyfully, wrapping her arms around Kate’s neck. “Is Seth your Prince Charming?”

Seth had rolled down his sleeves to adjust the cufflinks in order to keep himself busy, but he felt her eyes on him, commanding every cell in his body to give all their attention to her.

“Seth doesn’t believe in fairytales.”

Rse gasped dramatically as her blue eyes narrowed disapprovingly at him. “A fairy dies when you don’t believe, Seth.”

“Who told you that, sweetheart?” he asked with a coy grin.

“Peter Pan,” she informed matter-of-factly.

“Tell you what, Rose,” he said in a tone that suggested immediate surrender, “if your mom wants me to be her Prince Charming, I’ll believe for a night.”

“Mama,” Rose called with persistence. “will you let Seth be your Prince Charming?”

Kate wanted to curse at the smirk Seth was wearing now as his dark eyes teased her. She huffed. “I suppose. For all fairy lives out there.” She spun on her heels, directing them to bed. “But in order for us to make it to the ball on time, you need to go to sleep.”

“Will you be back when I wake up?” Rose asked as she crawled onto the bed, letting herself be tucked in at the center.

Kate did not expect to falter, to let the sharp shred of fear in her chest to crawl up and clutch her throat, forbidding her from forming words.

“I will bring her home by midnight,” said Seth, suddenly beside Kate with a hand on her bare back. His fingertips moved in circles to comfort her, to assure her. “That’s how these things work, right?”

Rose nodded. “Can you and mama read me a bedtime story, Seth?”

Seth froze. In the ten days they had been staying in the warehouse, all he had been able to get was a brief goodnight from his daughter before Kate put her to bed. These were significant moments in a child’s life, were they not? They were milestones for parents, too; to be able to put your child to bed with promises of a shiny tomorrow.

He thought Kate would not allow it, but she handed him the nearest book and instructed him on creating voices for each character according to their personalities. He felt like an idiot portraying a fat, orange cat, but when his little girl laughed, he put on a bigger production.

She did not hold on to the end of the book. Her eyes closed between him and Kate. It was an amazing sight to see, something so heartwarming and life-changing. His little sleeping angel. His miracle.

“I choose her,” he whispered to Kate after both pressed a kiss to Rose’s forehead when Santanico came in to inform them it was time to move. “Over thirty million dollars—over anything, even my own life, Kate. I choose her.”

Kate reached for his hand, lacing her fingers through his. It was the first honest thing that had slipped out of his mouth in a long time.


	9. Enter Demons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story took a turn of its own. I definitely didn't plan where this is going, but I kinda like it. Hope you do, too.

The silver moon was full in the midnight blue and plum sky. The trees whistled with bitter coldness as a haze of smoke obscured the lonely road ahead. It was the perfect night for monsters to come out to play. Kate almost laughed at the cliche as she strapped a blade around her thigh for her impending descent to where those monsters would gather. 

“Shit,” sighed Richie when she approached the semi-truck. 

A firm hand gripped his shoulder, holding him back when his blue eyes morphed into a ravenous yellow that forced his fangs out as his smoothly shaven features distorted to expose his culebra side. 

“Easy, brother,” said Seth with an underlined threat. “She’s not your fucking meal.”

“What did you do to her?” Richie turned to Santanico when she came around from the front of the truck.

“I put her on display,” the tone in her voice suggested she would grin wickedly, but Santanico’s constant incomprehensible torment blazed in her dark eyes, “for all hungry men to crave.”

Kate shivered from the degrading moment looming in the hours to come. Seth took notice of this; he placed his hands on her bare shoulders now, rubbing up and down to spark a much needed warmth. 

“You don’t have to do this, princess,” he murmured gently at her. 

Although her eyes looked up at him with restrained affection, a memory from long ago, she still said, “Don’t call me that.” He couldn’t force a smile and she looked back to the warehouse in the distance. “Will she be safe?”

“No one knows about this place,” he said immediately. “Richie and the Snake Queen made it so. Besides, Eddie is armed to the teeth. Trust me; our kid is safe with him.”

A black car pulled up from the left end of the lonely road, flashing bright headlights that made them all squint. Sonja came out of the driver’s side.

“I checked the path. It’s all clear. We can move now,” she informed.

Seth cleared his throat, leaving Kate’s side to approach Sonja. She wrapped her arms around him, pushing herself up to her toes to kiss him. Seth kissed back for a brief moment. Then they were whispering to each other, huddled close, when Richie offered his hand out to Kate. She took it.

She hadn’t realized she was holding her breath until Santanico opened the back of the truck and a group of crying, frightened girls looked back at them. They were all dressed and polished for their presentation.

The drive felt like a lifetime despite her knowing it would take two hours to get there. The other girls continued to cry, to pray, to damn God and deceiving men, and Kate had never felt more at home among a group of people. All of them were torn from their homes, promised a better life although they were running from what they left behind, and met the devil along the way. They were forced to do horrible, despicable things before being served up to fulfill someone else’s needs to an end. She wanted to assure them they would all get out alive, that they would be given their freedoms when all of this was done, but Kate was not entirely sure  _ she  _ was going to make it out at all. And life had taught her long ago never to give someone hope when it was such a fragile thing. 

They all had gone over the plan hundreds of times in that week for it not to go accordingly (as Richie insisted). He and Santanico had previously met with Blanchard to solidify themselves as business partners he wanted at his side, not only because they could deliver quality product, but because they were ruthless killers that knew how to take from anyone. Richie assured them they scared Blanchard, but Santanico said the man had been impressed with promises of what they could deliver seeing as those higher on the food chain were looking for unique product. After they had gotten a slot in Blanchard’s bidding night, they all went over the blueprint of the night club. It was Seth’s job to memorize the interior, as he would be posing as Santanico and Richie’s lackey (something he had not been all too pleased about hearing) who unloaded the merchandise, while Sonja manned the outside to report any unwanted guests or unexpected blockades for their eventual getaway. When they sold their product, Richie and Santanico would drive to the final destination to know once and for all where Malvado operated from. Then, the plans for war would really begin.

All Kate had to do was sell herself for all of it to play out.

The sliding door was pulled up a few minutes after the truck had come to a stop. Richie started helping the other girls out while Seth jumped in and pulled Kate into his chest. His hold was tight and possessive, his hammering heart against her ear told her he was afraid, but when she looked up at him he was masking it with rage. A cough from the exit of the truck told them it was time, and both brothers helped her out until Santanico dragged her into the line with the other girls. 

“Let’s get ramblin’,” Seth said when the backdoor of the club was opened by a bald, bulldozer of a man. 

Kate and the other girls were led to a dressing room where a woman, Madame Diana, waited. She gave Richie (or Mr. Richard Sanz, as he was posing; Seth snorted when he heard it) instructions to meet Blanchard at the bar. He took Seth with him in order to leave him in the point they all agreed would be advantageous for them. Santanico was the other half of this Sanz business partnership, but she insisted she stay behind to assure none of her merchandise was malfunctioning before the act. 

Everything was running smoothly until Diana smacked one of the girls that could not stop crying. Kate moved to attack at her audacity, her hand reaching for the blade tucked beneath her dress, but Santanico had beat her to the punch. She gripped her wrists, pulling her down to her knees before her fangs came out and she bit into her throat. The other girls gasped, calling for God again, begging for his mercy, when Diana’s body dropped disregarded against the floor. Santanico wiped her chin from a stray droplet of blood. 

“ _ Escuchenme _ ,” she called for attention, firm and with her dark eyes glittering menacingly. “ _ La única manera que salen todas vivas de esto es haciendo todo lo que yo les diga. Solo entonces las dejaremos ir. Me entienden? _ ” There was a pause with only tearful sniffles in the background. Santanico bared her teeth, hissing. “ _ Me entienden? _ ”

The girls nodded instantly to indicate their surrender. 

A man’s voice came from the radio on Diana, instructing her to bring out the merchandise. 

In front of the terrified girls, Santanico morphed into the madame. She did not bother to explain to them what they were seeing; instead, she looked at Kate with violent reassurance. “Do you remember my dance back at the Twister?” When she got a nod she added, “Copy it. Lure them to you. And you  _ will _ , Kate. When that happens, I swear I won’t let them touch you.”

Although she had allied herself with Santanico, Kate never exactly trusted her. Until now. There was something in her tone, a fierceness, a desperation, that revealed to her more than she assumed Santanico wanted to show. She knew, as she was guided out of the dressing room with the other girls, that whatever was in the cards, Santanico would have her back. 

Richie was seated with Blanchard, sharing a glass of finely aged bourbon, when his eyes discreetly glanced to the level above. On the balcony, hidden in the shadows, was Seth. He could barely make out his figure, but Richie could smell him and hear the quiet rage simmer in his bloodstream.

“You’re tensed, Sanz,” Blanchard was quick to point out. “Afraid you won’t deliver as promised?”

“I’m not tensed,” replied Richie, smooth and collected as ever, “I’m just wondering if  _ you _ are the one who can’t deliver. I see three potential buyers, all with the same look of psychotic killer that’ll use my merchandise for their own version of The Most Dangerous Game.”

Blanchard turned to look at the three buyers Richie was referring to. They were scattered in the back row, drinks in hand and practically foaming at the mouth as they focused on the naked women grinding up against each other. 

Diana appeared before them as the first group of girls was being arranged on the stage. Kate walked on slowly, standing just beneath the right spotlight. She glowed in her gold gown, bewitching every eye that landed on her. She looked like a wet dream, even if her wide, innocent eyes flared with the same fear that wrapped the other girls around her. 

“Well fuck,” Blanchard practically moaned when he zeroed in on her. “That right there is a peach.”

Richie’s hand tightened around his glass. “She’s not for sale."

Blanchard and Diana turned to him, one with an eyebrow arched high and the other frowning at him impatiently. It was only when Diana’s eyes sparked yellow that Richie composed himself. A shadow of a frown formed on his features at now knowing that Santanico had strayed from the plan an hour in.

“Can’t sell to the Browns if the Browns ain’t here,” Richie cleared up. “I don’t pick up quality product to sell to some deranged fucks living in a basement, jerking off to necrophiliac porn. I want an in with the Browns.”

There was a gasp from the stage that caused Richie and Santanico to look up. They heard Kate’s heart viciously pound in her chest, trying to break out past her bones and skin. 

“Good things come to those who wait, Sanz,” Blanchard said with a hard clap to Richie’s back. “The buyer for the top son of a bitch is already here.”

Blanchard downed the rest of his drink as he rose up to his feet. “Carlos Madrigal!”

Richie and Santanico moved with undetectable speed when Carlos walked into the club and Blanchard intercepted him with a wide, welcoming grin. He forced her up the stairs to where Seth was hiding. Instantly, his brother pushed a gun against his head. 

“Get Kate out of here. _Now_.”

“We can’t,” Santanico was the one to speak. “Everything is in motion.”

“She’s right,” Richie huffed, moving his head to the side after the gun cocked against his ear. “Well, she is Seth. If we attempt to bail now it’s going to be a bloodbath.”

“Carlos knows Kate, you fucking nutjob,” Seth reminded. “What makes either of you fucking think he doesn’t already know the prophecy? What if he kills her here and now?”

Richie turned to Santanico. “He’s right.”

“Grow some  _ huevos _ , Richard,” Santanico snarled at him with an eye roll for jumping ship so easily. “He doesn’t know about the prophecy. Even if he did, he doesn’t know the light means her. No. This is perfect. Kate is pure. She is ideal for the role of Blood Gatherer. Carlos would be an idiot not to bid on her tonight.”

Seth was about to protest when Santanico added, “You put her life at risk by trying to save her. This needs to happen just as we planned.”

“Fine,” he growled, pulling his gun back from Richie’s head. “But don’t you fucking leave her, Santanico. You make sure she is safe.”

Santanico almost faltered at his use of her name. He was terrified for Kate, for the mother of his child, for the one that he loved. It was almost disgustingly beautiful. But she did not comment on it; she just nodded once at him before she and Richie slithered back down the staircase.

“I’ve got it covered,” she said. “You keep out of sight.”

Richie stayed behind the bar, next to a dark corner as Santanico morphed back to Madame Diana. He wondered how she could keep composure when she went to hug and kiss Carlos like an old friend. _Anything_ _for_ _the_ _cause_ , he concluded as the lights dimmed and music played.

The girls on stage moved before Kate could. She had stepped back behind a taller girl, hiding to give herself a moment to breathe. She had to remember the plan: she was the needed key that would give them access to Malvado’s operation. Without her doing her part, they would never be able to bring him down before the truth about the prophecy—about Rose—came out. She glanced up, searching for a religious juncture, but instead caught Seth’s dark gaze. 

The instant her hips started to move the girls around her ended up in the background. She allowed the spotlight to shower over her, exposing her to every vile man and woman longing for someone that was not theirs to possess in the first place. She attempted to recall the way Santanico had moved in her revealing outfit, a snake on her shoulders, commanding the attention of everyone in the room back in the Twister. Yet, whereas Santanico had been compelled to exert dominance over a desirous multitude, Kate had only ever learned to want that from one man. And he was watching her from a balcony, hiding in the dark to protect her from every last person that would try to take from her what she had never wanted to give to anyone who was not him. So Kate moved her body not by memory of what Santanico had once done, but in memory of how her body had swayed under and over Seth’s.

Blanchard called an end to the bidding when Carlos offered a hefty sum for all of the girls. Kate was knocked out of her illusion when he wrapped his fingers around her wrist.

“Mr. Madrigal,” Diana was instantly by the stage, “I have to take all my girls now for loading. Club’s policy. You understand don’t you, sugar?”

There was something about Carlos that had changed since the last time Kate and Santanico had seen him. He was a despicable man back then, but there was more to him now. A greater evil. Something twisted that he carried like a crown. He had always spoke about becoming a god, but now he seemed to believe he was one without a doubt. It unnerved both Kate and Santanico to see and feel it radiate out of him like body heat. 

“You can load the truck with the other girls, Diana. This one,” he tugged on Kate’s arm, making her gasp when he scooped her off the stage to place beside him, “is mine.”

Kate looked behind her shoulder at Santanico, her eyes pleading while Carlos took her away. Before they were out of sight, she saw Richie come out of the shadows with his eyes burning yellow just as Seth’s loud footsteps thundered against the staircase. She tried to calm her mind in the next second, to force the pulse in her ears from deafening her so she could plan an exit route, but Carlos was faster. He pushed her into a room, closing the door behind him.

His gaze on her was like a predator, slowly looking at everything she had to offer before it was his time to devour. 

“Where did you learn to dance like that?” he asked her as he unbuttoned the cufflinks of his sleek, grey blazer.

Kate backed against the center table of the room. “Don’t get near me,” she warned.

“At first I had a difficult time believing it was you. Kate Fuller, the preacher’s daughter dancing sinfully on a stage for someone to stake a claim on. I asked Blanchard how you ended up in his lovely club, and he said you were brought in by a Mr. Sanz.  _ Carajo _ , Katie. Look at how’ve you grown. You are an exquisite woman now. So tempting.” His eyes were yellow as he took one calculating step forward. “I would have stolen you, too.”

When he moved to launch himself at her, she dodged him, pulling out her blade from beneath her golden dress. “I am not going to be yours.”

Carlos grinned like the cheshire cat. “Oh, but you will. Then I will make you a queen, Kate.”

“I rather die.”

He laughed before charging again. Kate was not fast enough this time around. He smacked the blade out of her hand, bending her arm behind her back to reel her in. He pressed himself against her and she could smell the bittersweet red wine he had been drinking. “You know,” he whispered hot against her cheek as his free palm slapped on her waist, his fingers squeezing where her flesh indented before he moved it down her curves, “there is no worse kind of torture than only loving a part of someone,” he shoved her onto the bed before climbing on, his body heavy on her, “when you want the whole thing. He’ll crave you until he has broken everything you are, and then he’ll give you to me. Just like he did with her. But now...Now I’m going to break you first, Kate, and give him what remains so he can finally know what loving defective parts feels like.”

Kate screamed when he collected the material of her dress, forcing it up to her thighs. Carlos wrapped his right hand on her throat, squeezing, but just before his fingers could touch in between her legs, the door of the room was assaulted by round of bullets. Santanico and Seth burst in with an intent to unleash war.

With the same hand that had been gripping her throat, Carlos pulled her off the bed in order to put distance between them and the intruders. He laughed again, maniacally so, when his gaze fell upon Santanico. “ _ Diosa _ ,” he greeted devotedly and violently at all once, “It has been too long.”

“Give her to me, you son of a bitch,” Seth growled before Santanico could find the words. 

“Not the Gecko  _ pendejo  _ I thought you would be with,” Carlos continued. “Where is Richard? Don’t tell me he isn’t around because I can smell the psycho from here. Who else would have come up with this plan? You,  _ mi diosa? _ Offering an innocent, pure,” his hand travel down Kate again, making Seth’s hands shake and murder burn in his eyes, “soul for eternal servitude. Such a cruel and ugly thing to do to a little girl.” 

Although Kate had lost her blade, it was not the only weapon in her arsenal. After she had given birth to Rose she had been trained in how to bring down anyone that got in her way; and those past couple of days training alongside Santanico were not in vain, either. She raised her elbow high before crushing it down against his side. The surprise hit made him loosen his grip and Kate slithered out of it instantly. She charged toward Seth the same second Santanico went in for Carlos in her culebra form.

The impact of the two culebras was all Kate heard before Seth dragged her out with his arm around her shoulder. It was when they were a hall away that she moved out of his protective embrace. She stopped on her tracks, forcing him to do the same.

“We can’t leave her! We have to go back for her!”

“What?” he demanded. “Are fucking crazy? We aren’t going back for her! We are getting out—”

Two shots echoed out of the room.

“She came back for me, Seth! I have to go back for her!”

The determined, righteous glint in Kate made him growl in deep, twisted frustration (why the hell did she need to be so goddamn honorable?). “For fuck sakes!  _ Fine _ ! I’ll go back for the Snake Queen! But you go find Richie!”

Hell had officially broken loose by the time Kate made it back to the entrance of the bar. People were running everywhere to avoid the sound of bullets she had wrongly assumed where coming from the room she had just escaped. It was a western movie scene on the floor when she pushed in. Blanchard and his bald, Hulk lookalike henchman were shooting at an overturned table she could only assume one Richard Sanz (freaking Gecko) was using as refuge after upsetting his new business associate.

Kate kicked off the gold heels that Santanico had made a part of her ensemble before running in for the attack. She jumped on to Blanchard’s back after kicking the gun out of his hand. She twisted her body like an expert athlete to force him on to his back. 

“Richie,” she yelled, “now is not the time to be culebra shy!” 

“I thought I’d kill them with my humanity,” he returned just as he kicked the table he had been using to hurl it against the henchman before he could strike, “because I know how much it upsets you if I start tearing limbs.”

Blanchard smacked Kate across the face before she could roll her eyes at Richie. At that same moment three more of his henchman entered the bar, one bigger than the last. She got onto her feet instantly to move beside Richie, spitting out the blood that had pooled in her mouth. Some of it dribbled on her chin and he ran a distracting thumb over it, bringing it to his tongue.

“Sweeter than horchata,” he sighed before she frowned at him. “I really don’t want to get blood on your dress, Kate. You know you’re downright fuckable in it—Seth’s words, not mine.”

“Richard,” she began with an underline of a reprimand, like how she had to speak to Rose when she did something she shouldn’t have. 

“I’m gonna tear out your fucking eyes,” Blanchard said as he was given another gun, “after you watch me take your girl. Then I’m gonna kill you, you piece of shit.”

“Not my girl, first off,” Richie said. “She used to be. Sorta. Now she’s like my sister. It’s complicated. But, I’ll tell you what, Blanchard. How about you tell me where the shipment goes, then I’ll tear out  _ your  _ eyes and kill you?”

Blanchard was mid laugh before a round of bullets got his waiting henchmen down to their knees. Cool and prompt as ever, Seth stood at the entrance of the bar, casually reloading his gun.

“You’re welcome,” he sneered at them.

“I fucking had that,” complained Richie.

“Yeah. Sure you fucking—”

Kate lunged at Blanchard (who still had a gun) before he did something that resulted on either brother getting hurt. She had taken his weapon, forced his back against the ground as she stomped her bare foot on his throat to keep him there. She then turned to the brothers to ask, “Where’s Santanico?”

“She went to get the girls out of the truck.”

“And Carlos?”

“Jumped out the fucking window,” he said. “Unfortunately, he didn’t fucking die so there’s that to look forward to.”

“We’ll deal with Carlos later,” Richie weighed in on the conversation. “Right now we need to get what we came for from Blanchard.”

“I’m not gonna tell you anything, fucker.”

“We’ll see,” Richie grinned as he moved in, motioning Kate to retreat. He bent down and grabbed Blanchard by the lapels of his blazer. He morphed into his culebra side and exposed his fangs. “Either way, you’re still gonna die.”

While Kate understood that Blanchard could not be kept alive for precautions, she still had to leave the room. Despite the years that passed, despite the things she had seen and the things she had done, murder was still not a passable sin. It burned her. Every life that was taken, be it human or culebra, tore the already fragmented pieces of her heart. Perhaps her daddy and the quiet community of Bethel had cocooned her into believing no evil existed so long as you embraced God, but this was not the world she imagined after that daydream had been shattered. It was crueler and colder than any conceivable nightmare. It was not the world she wanted Rose to be in.

The bitter breeze of the night touched her bare skin, stinging the split lip Blanchard had given her. The full moon was being colored by faint orange in the distance. Sunrise was coming. She released a breath, letting the rate of her heart settle to its normal rhythm when she thought of getting to Rose before she woke up.

The thought was killed when she was launched back into the brick wall. Her head bounced off it to then collide with the pavement. She groaned, rolling to her back as the world spun.

“You’re back,” said a voice Kate had not heard in years. 

_ Scott _ . 

Tears formed in her eyes; not from the hit, but for him. All those years putting distance between the last place she left him in and her current one obligated her to pretend he did not exist. But he did exist. He was real. He was as real as all the nightmares that terrorized her even after all this time; just before Seth’s abandonment, it was her leaving Scott back in that temple that recurred the most. 

Now he was standing before her, slightly taller and more built than ever, and his eyes filled with hate and despair and love and everything Kate felt for him, too. 

“You should’ve stayed gone, Kate,” Scott said before he changed and went in for the kill.

She was too disoriented from her previous impact to react, but just as he had done all that terrible night, Seth appeared ready to save her despite the danger on the other side.


	10. Slice of Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have I mentioned I loved writing for Seth? Also, DUN DUN DUN.

The worst part about Richie being fucking crazy was not his sporadic, psychopathic tantrums of removing eyes from people, but that his mind was sharper than ever before. Back in the day he was a little goddamn Einstein; he had collected so much data of the world around him that it was fucking useless most of time. His knowledge about who-gives-a-fuck this or who-gives-a-fuck that served only to annoy the shit out of Seth ( _ ‘I’m the one that has to share a room with him, Eddie! Don’t tell me I can’t tell him to shut the hell up!’ _ ). Of course, the only times it was useful, the only times Seth would ever think about praising him and giving credit where credit was due, was when the Gecko Brothers stormed through like a fucking hurricane and took everything in their path. That’s when Richie shined like a goddamn star. Then the fucking Vampire Stripper happened and he went insane—that’s when his fucking perceptive skills started to make Seth contemplate putting a bullet through his skull. 

“Stop fucking smirking at me, Richard,” Seth huffed as he stood before the bathroom mirror, bare chest, wiping his wounded shoulder with an antibiotic serum. 

Richie had been leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, and that smug fucking expression on his face that would not go away. He had come in when Sonja was attempting to help Seth, and his piercing, unmoving gaze unnerved her to the point of making her leave. She called him an asshole on the way out, and he gave her a shit-eating grin that suggested a reciprocated sentiment. 

“Kate shot you,” he finally said.

“It’s just a graze.”

“It sure as hell wouldn’t have been if I hadn’t fucked up her aim.”

Seth disposed of the bloodied cotton pads and rag that he had used to clean his wound. He reached for a bandage on the sink. He was ignoring his brother, but that did not mean Richie was done talking.

“It was kinda hot. She was so angry, assertive, out of control. The way her blood vibrated beneath her skin, making her mouthwatering—”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Richard,” Seth hissed, turning from the mirror to glare at him. “She’s not a dessert. She’s  _ Kate _ .”

“You forget that I got a taste of her mouth before you did. I already know how sweet she is. What if I want seconds?”

Seth grabbed the tube of antibiotic ointment and pointed it at Richie threateningly like it was a gun with wooden bullets. There was a fury in his eyes, just above the wave of jealousy. “Stay away from Kate. She barely fucking trusts either of us, your creepy juju will just end up making her leave. Got it?”

“Got it,” Richie conceded with that same goddamn smirk before punching him on his wounded shoulder. Seth groaned in pain. “But for the record, she’s entitled to move on. I mean, she already met  _ your _ new girl.”

When Seth found out about Rose, the last thing on his mind had been Sonja. Hell, if he was perfectly fucking honest with himself, he did not even think about calling her after Ranger Gonzalez had instructed him and Richie to go straight to California for Kate. All he could fucking think about was Kate; Kate with a gun to her head when he had taken her hostage, Kate with dirt and blood asking if he needed company outside the fucking Twister, Kate with her soft breathing and warm skin beside him on an itchy motel bed during his many restless nights, Kate with tears in her eyes as he poured vodka to prevent an infection on her torn thigh after a culebra attack gone wrong, Kate with a giant grin lighting up the world when a job went right, Kate with her confident hands but nervous eyes pulling off her dress, Kate with her plush lips on his as they both moved in the same slow rhythm, Kate with a cloud of betrayal impending unforgivable rain when he pushed her out of his life. He had to let Richie drive most of the way there because his hands could not stop shaking. Then he saw her again—then he saw their  _ daughter _ , and, really, the last thing Seth thought about was Sonja. All he could process was the little girl in the backseat talking to Richie about some cartoons and Kate looking out the window with tears streaming down her face.

It was only when they crossed into Texas that Seth realized he was driving straight to Uncle Eddie’s where he and his girlfriend were living for the past two years. He would not force the Snake Queen upon anyone, especially his daughter, but he needed time to break the news not only to Sonja, but Uncle Eddie, too. Of course, nothing ever worked out the way Seth fucking planned, so things went to shit quicker than the bullet Kate had shot his way. Once she had made the choice that she rather stay with Richie and his puppet master, Seth drove to Eddie’s for the unavoidable (and a bag of clothing and weapons).

“We didn’t get a chance to talk back there,” he said when Sonja walked into the room they had been sharing since they crossed the border from Mexico to Texas. 

“About your daughter?” she returned with a faint smile, taking a seat at the edge of their bed. “Yeah. I needed some air. And to get away from your brother.”

Seth dropped his case of bullets into his bag before walking over. “I didn’t know,” and there was no denying the aching sincerity behind his words. “If I had...I would’ve been a man about it. I wouldn’t have been running around Mexico getting hopped up on meth and picking fights every night. I would’ve been there for her.”

“For who?” Sonja asked quietly, her eyes on Seth. “Your daughter or Kate?”

“I’m a bastard, Sonja, but not a fucking bastard,” was what he said when he could not find the right words. He knew the answer, though. He would have been there for Kate, too. Fuck, he should have been there for Kate. 

“She is the partner you never wanted to talk about, isn’t she?” Before Seth could nod at the question she added, “Did you love her?”

Seth felt like he had been whacked over the head with a bat. He stumbled back on the balls of his feet, looking at Sonja like she had sprouted another head. He had never asked himself that before. He had never even bothered to think about that before. All he had known for certain throughout those seven months—throughout the last six years—was that he  _ needed _ her. Kate had become an extension of himself that darkness had not torn to shreds. She was his partner. Fuck, she was everything.

“Look,” he breathed as he sat beside her, taking her hand, “it was one night, okay? Then things got fucked up and I left. If this goddamn prophecy hadn’t popped up, chances are I would’ve never seen her again. But now she’s back and I have a daughter. I screw shit up all the time, Sonja, but I don’t want Rose to be one of those things.”

She looked down at their clasped hands for a long, silent moment. When she took a deep breath, a smile pulled at her lips. “You won’t screw this up, Seth.” She then peered over his shoulder, to the bag he had been packing. He tried to explain himself before she asked, but she interrupted him by saying, “You get one pass.  _ One _ . Okay? I know you hate Santanico and don’t trust Richie. I don’t, either. If you need to be there to protect your daughter, do it. Besides,” she added when he kissed her cheek and got back up to his feet, “this doesn’t change anything, does it? The life that’s waiting for us in Maldives after we pull this job?”

“Right,” he said as he grabbed his things. “It changes nothing.”

Seth was sure she heard the lie just as loud as he thought it. Everything had changed from the moment he crossed into California knowing that he would reunite with Kate. He hadn't been too sure what the outcome would be, fuck if he even got her to stick around long enough for them to deal with the Nine, but now there was a life tying them together that changed everything Seth thought his would be after stealing thirty million dollars from an old, vindictive vampire.

Eddie was waiting beside the car when Seth stepped out of the house. 

“If I'd been Richie I wouldn’t have stopped that bullet from hitting you.”

“Thanks, Uncle Eddie,” Seth scoffed as he opened the passenger door to throw in his things. “Glad you have my back.”

“It’s because I do, you snarky bastard.” He slammed a hand on the window of the driver’s side when Seth went for the handle. “There’s a code. The code we live by.”

“Yes, I know all about the fucking code.”

“We don’t pull jobs that put our kids’ lives at risk.”

“Which is why Dad liked to be the one to bring us to the edge of death, but not let others do it.”

“You are not your father, Seth. I never fucking thought you were. Or Richie, for that matter. We knew perfectly well what we were getting into when we decided to rob the Browns, but your little girl sure as hell doesn’t need to be mixed in. Or her mother.”

“I won’t let anything happen to Kate or Rose,” he growled, pulling on the door handle again. “I’ll figure shit out, okay? Don't worry about it. Now, is there anything else you wanna fucking say, or can I leave because I left my daughter and Kate with two people who are known to eat their guests.”

He shouldn't have fucking asked. He was not prepared to hear what came out of his uncle’s mouth.

“You have a bad habit of picking girls that come between you and your brother,” Eddie took a step back from the car. “Don’t let one come between you and your daughter.”

After his mother had abandoned them, Seth rarely thought anything felt like home. Sure as shit didn’t feel like it with Ray Gecko and his daily beatings he so ignorantly thought built healthy forms of strength and discipline and confidence ( _ ‘Don’t you fucking cry, Seth. You’re a man, ain’t you? Stop shaking like a fucking girl. Get up!’ _ ). They would never fucking say it to each other, let alone to anyone else, but when Eddie took them in both Richie and Seth were too broken for anything to feel okay again. Seth hated his father, absolutely fucking despised him, thought so many times of shooting him in his goddamn face when he forced him to take apart a gun and put it back together, but he was the last parent they had. The only one who decided to stay. But he had burned down along with their house and it had screwed them both up more than they already were. Seth grew anxious and Richie grew abnormal. It took months to really get to  know Eddie for either of them to stop flinching every time he spoke too loud or cursed at them (it being somewhat a form of affection). Eventually, on a twin bed above a repair shop, Seth could breathe again. He was twenty when he moved out and shacked up with Vanessa after their impromptu Vegas wedding and the honeymoon lasted one damn week. In those days it was nothing but sex, money, food, sex, sleep; a routine Seth thought would last them all their lives. Then she became angry, possessive, and jealous every single time Richie was around that he felt fucking relieved when she bailed for three days and returned with divorce papers after a year of marriage. Used to the independence ( _ ‘What fucking independence, brother? Vanessa cut off your balls and fed them to you for dinner,’ _ ), Seth did not return to Uncle Eddie’s, but found an apartment with Richie. It was practically empty save the fridge filled with beer and the high-def television he got from the divorce. It was the first time in fucking years that Seth thought it could be home, just him and his brother, side by side, as it should be. Of course, then came prison after a job gone wrong when Seth decided not to work with Richie. Five years in a six-by-nine cell was like living inside your fucking screwed up head (the bastards ready to kill him were real, too, just outside his cell in orange jumpsuits). He was sure he was on the verge of insanity if it had not been for Richie breaking him out. Thirty million dollars in stolen bonds, a shoot out with a fucking leech of a Ranger, taking a preacher and his family hostage, vampires and a temple of fucking doom later, Seth thought the closest thing to home he would ever get was Kate. They jumped from shithole to shithole, but as long as he turned to his side and saw her there, kind and innocent, beautiful and loyal, he never thought about sunshine and blue agave. He was okay with culebra blood in between his fingernails and a desert road ahead so long as Kate was in the passenger seat. It could have been close to perfect, it was some days, but there was something missing from both of them for anything to truly feel complete.

Naturally, even if he avoided admitting it to himself, there was something real fucking rare and mending the first time he saw Richie read a book to Rose as Kate brushed her hair (even if the Snake Queen was sat beside him on the couch, flipping through a cooking magazine specializing in hearty meals for children). Everything had shifted around for this moment, for this clear, one-way view of home he has spent his entire fucking life searching for. And it was not his to claim.

“Kid’s smart,” Richie said to him one morning as Kate taught Rose about the formation of sentences on the newly bought dinner table. “Just like her uncle.”

Seth rolled his eyes, keeping his attention on Rose’s concentrated, furrowed brows when Kate asked her to come up with her own sentence and then write it down.

“She gets that from you, the brow thing,” his brother continued. “She gets a lot of things from you, actually.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Seth heard himself whisper a truth he did not want to give. “Being a Gecko has never been a commendation, Richie. Not in anything that fucking matters.”

“But she has a whole lot of Kate, too, brother. She's safe from whatever bullshit DNA we were given.” He clapped a hand against Seth’s back. “Stop being afraid of your daughter and get to know her. You’ve missed her first five years. Don’t miss the next five seconds, too.”

Kate was hesitant of Seth’s sudden proximity, he knew. He held his breath every time he tiptoed the line she drew to separate herself and Rose from everyone else in the warehouse. They had a bond that was unlike anything he had encountered (he did not exactly have role model parents and he never frequented people who were mentally stable): Kate could communicate with Rose without having to say anything, just a pointed look got the message she wanted to send across, Rose knew exactly how to make Kate laugh without much effort, bringing to her a lovely flush of color to the paleness of her skin that contrasted with the dark environment, and they had a routine they followed to detail, perfectly synchronized in the way they completed it. Seth was jealous of that connection; saddened and angry he had missed the opportunity to form a relationship with Rose. He had not been discreet about that sentiment, which is why he guessed Kate, despite loathing him, allowed him to cross the line and join them.

 To his great surprise, Rose still remained unafraid around him regardless of the commotion she (yet again) stumbled upon where Seth had fucked things up. She smiled real big at him and was eager to tell or explain things to him about whatever task she was doing or game she was playing. It was how he discovered she had a very active, vivid imagination and was a little perfectionist ( _ ‘Okay, fine, Richie. She gets that from you.’ _ ). She would tell him stories with dragons and jewels and princes and girl warriors and he ate them all up like they were classics. Sometimes, as they sat around with her barbie dolls and superhero action figures, she would ask him to tell her a story of his own; Seth had a lot about a fucking cruel life filled with bastards and blood and vampires, but he never wanted his little girl to know of the horrors on the other side of the door. She would touch his cheek gently when he remained silent, like she sensed the warped sadness inside of him, and gave him a smile that wanted to heal his shattered pieces. One day he told her about a preacher’s daughter who went to a barren land to find a lost boy who could only see life in black and white; she eventually taught the boy how to see in color and follow the light her shadow gave to paradise.  

“Did they live happily ever after?” Rose asked.

“She did.” He refrained from telling her how the boy pushed the preacher’s daughter out of his life after stealing her innocence so he could willingly spiral back into hell. 

Seth knew perfectly well he was a prideful motherfucker; he was also well aware that he needed to amend things with Kate, but he did not know exactly how to approach that front—which ultimately resulted in him getting angry at her being angry at him. It was like Mexico all over again, really. He pushed, she pushed, and a battle broke out before someone caved. 

Indubitably, it was  _ his  _ turn to cave. 

He had been sat on the makeshift kitchen Richie had built overnight, cleaning his gun, when Kate stumbled in, half asleep, still wearing sinfully tiny shorts and a tank top as her pajamas after all these years. She had argued with Richie several times about the food Rose was allowed to eat ( _ ‘I don’t care if it tastes better, Richie. She’s a growing girl. She needs protein and vitamins, not Fruity Pebbles.’ _ ), and was frowning at the boxes of cereals he had, once again, picked up. 

“I stocked the fridge with actual food.” The sound of his voice startled her, causing her to pull out a sharp knife from the dish rack as she righted her body into defense mode. Seth glanced over her toned figure, ending up fixated on the shine of warrior in her green eyes (fuck, Richie was right. She was hot when she looked ready to kick ass). “Thought Rose might like eggs for a change. There’s pancake mix in the cupboard, too.”

Kate lowered the knife, but there was still a reluctance to her poise. “Pancakes?” she repeated. “You never bring me pancakes unless you want something.”

He couldn’t help the twitch to the corner of his lips. It was like fucking deja vu; like reliving an exact memory down to the way she crossed her arms and he cleaned his gun. Instead of trying to convince her to rob a joint with him, he said, “Rethink becoming the decoy.”

She groaned. “It’s too early to argue over this again. My choice is made.”

“And I’m telling you it’s a fucking bad—” He paused, gritting his teeth. He did not want to argue with her. The whole point was to fix things,  _ try to _ by the very least. He inhaled to steady himself before saying, “Offering you as bait when Malvado’s looking for the key is not the best move, okay? I don’t want you to get hurt, Kate.”

Alike their time in Mexico when it was his turn to comply, she was quick to register when he was trying to be a decent human being. She knew it did not come easily for him, which led her to pulling out the chair beside him. She held on to silence for a moment before her hand went to grab his. He almost felt the warmth of her touch again, but she backed out in the last second; she pulled the gun out of his hand and set it aside.

“Then don’t let me get hurt,” she muttered before meeting his eyes. 

He nodded firmly, resolution burning deep in his gaze at his silent vow that he would protect her. She gave him a dim smile, intent on getting up and carrying on with the morning as she normally could given the circumstances, but he asked, “How was it?”

“How was what?”

“The pregnancy, giving birth, raising her—fucking everything.” She had been about to protest, but he added, “Come on, Kate. I’m not just trying to get to know my daughter here. I’m trying to understand your last six years.”

She sighed, a fight in her eyes he hoped she would not give in to. “I ate a lot of strawberry ice cream,” she told him in a quiet voice, but there was a laugh with it, too. “Like in that mercado in Guadalajara, remember?”

“Yeah,” he said, a little in awe. It had been his favorite.

“Everything was normal until the last three months. I got really sick. The doctors wanted to induce my labor because....”

“What?”

“Because my health was in danger,” she looked away from him, nervous to meet his eyes as she knew they would darken with blame. “I bled a lot. Even during labor. It was painful, but it was worth it, Seth. I’d do it a thousand times if that meant giving life to Rose. Everything after, well,” she smiled at this, “I had Freddie and Margaret.”

If he had to choose between Kate’s life or the Ranger’s, Seth would sure as fuck choose hers over and over again. The choice was fucking obvious from the get-go, but as she told him everything the Ranger and his wife had done for her, how they had protected his daughter and created a family for them, Seth understood why it was important for Kate to find Gonzalez. It was not out of obligation. It was out of love. It was out of loyalty. 

And it would not only be Kate who suffered if the Ranger was killed.

“Seth?” Rose called for him after a few minutes of splashing around a brass tub, playing shipwreck with her dolls and a floatable swan. He was knelt over a towel, just beside the tub, hearing her detailed plotline. 

“Yeah, sweetheart?”

She flashed those beautiful blue eyes at him; he wanted to laugh at how adorable she looked with a mountain of bubbles on her head and a bubble-beard, but her gaze was so sad he felt something in his own chest ache. “I miss my family.”

He swallowed, grabbing a plastic cup to pour warm water over her hair. “You really love them, huh? The Ra—Freddie and his little ladies.”

She nodded slowly. “Billie is my best friend and Freddie and Margie are my godparents,” she informed him quietly.

Seth gently grasped her chin. “Hey now, baby girl,” he whispered when tears sparkled in her eyes. “You’ll see them soon, okay?”

“Promise?”

“Promise.” He was glad his daughter was not acquainted with his bullshit or she would be calling him out on it. Truth was, he didn’t know if she ever would. No one knew the Ranger’s fate (and if Seth had to guess, it wasn’t pretty), or when it would be safe for Kate and Rose to travel again. “Tell you what, Rose, while you’re here we can...we can be your family. Would you like that?”

An automatic grin tugged at her lips. He had come to find that whenever she was happy so was he, but this time he clocked in on her need to fit in, to belong to someplace and someone. It was the same urge he had felt as a child after he had been abandoned by his mother and he could not understand why the other kids at school weren’t covered in bruises like him.

“You have your mom here, so that’s covered. Eddie can be your grandpa—”

“I’ve never had a grandpa!” she exclaimed.

“And Richie can be your uncle. He’d be good for that.  _ Maybe _ . We can give him a trial run.”

“Would Kisa be my aunt?”

“She’s more like the house pet.” Rose knitted her brows, confused. He snorted. “Sure, sweetheart. She can be your aunt. For now.”

“What about you, Seth? Who are you gonna be?”

He wanted to tell her. He had every fucking right in the world to tell her the truth, but her life was a lovely illusion he could not shatter. It was not real, but it was hers. It was where she was happy and safe and everything made sense. He’d give in to that no good, goddamn bastard if he invaded her daydream with his hurricane of darkness.

With a clearing of his throat, he fetched the towel laying over the sink. “I’m the one who saves you from getting all wrinkly,” he said with a chuckle. “Come on, sweetheart. Into your pajamas and then bedtime.”

Rose pouted at him; it was the first time his daughter was upset at him and he never knew something like that could make him happy. 

He dressed her in the ridiculous cow onesie Richie got her and brushed her wet hair to prevent tangles. He was scared shitless of this, like it was a real fucking difficult task to oversee a child’s bathtime, but a part of him thought breaking out of prison had been a whole lot fucking easier. He was in his element there, wreaking havoc with guns ablazing, but anything that required tenderness and use of a side that was covered in spiderwebs made his hands shake. Rose kissed his cheek, sensing his nervousness, and he thought maybe he had a shot at being an alright father if it was to a little soul like hers. He led her out of the bathroom and into the makeshift sitting room. Richie was going over the blueprints of Blanchard’s club and Uncle Eddie was hooking up his VCR to Richie’s high-def television. 

“Oh, Grandpa,” squealed Rose, “are we gonna watch movies?”

Eddie dropped the remote, letting it crash at his feet, batteries flying out; his eyes were wide as they landed on Rose. Seth scratched his head, feeling fucking timid, and Richie looked up from his planning, one brow raised as he studied the scene. Eddie was definitely fucking startled, but there was also a glimmer of affection playing on his features. He released it immediately to frown. 

“Now, sunshine, you know it’s bedtime.” Rose pouted again, and Seth swore she had everyone wrapped around her little finger because Eddie was then quick to say, “But the morning is a different story, ain’t it?”

Rose nodded, a smile back on her face (Seth was convinced his little girl knew exactly what she was doing. Her charm was definitely innocent like Kate’s, but when she wanted something, hell have mercy on every bastard’s soul because it was all Seth Gecko). She kissed Eddie goodnight before skipping along to Richie (pulling up the hood of her onesie as to make him laugh) to wrap her arms around his knees. He had no problem interacting with Rose since they found out about her, but Richie had yet to be gifted one of her tight embraces. That, combined with a  _ ‘goodnight, Uncle Richie’ _ , seemed more effective on taking him out than a wooden stake. 

After allowing her to share a quick conversation with the Snake Queen, who had just exited the room where she had been prepping Kate for a few hours, Seth took Rose’s hand and led her away. Her little eyelids were growing heavy despite her claims that she was not sleepy at all, and he wanted Kate to catch her awake before they took off. When they entered the room Seth felt like all the oxygen in his lungs had escaped. Before him stood Kate dressed in gold, looking like a goddamn salvation. He couldn’t think of any fucking words worthy enough when his daughter asked if he thought Kate looked pretty (he just knew pretty did not fucking cut it).

He was not the only one. When they stepped out to the open road after putting their daughter to bed, Richie had been an inch away from  _ literally  _ devouring Kate. His brother could contain his culebra side when it came to Kate because she meant something to him, but he was absolutely fucking sure that whoever awaited in that club would not take the same care.

“Nothing’s going to happen to her,” Richie tried to be reassuring as they drove to Blanchard’s club. Seth kept looking behind his shoulder, as if he suddenly developed fucking x-ray vision and he could see Kate locked up in the back. “Remember, it’s just to get us an in. She’s not really for sale.”

“You better fucking make sure, Richard,” Seth threatened, his fingers tapping over his knee at a fast rhythm. “Don’t let anyone get their fucking hands on her.”

Richie grinned. “Of course not. That’s entitled to you, isn’t it?”

“Don’t start.”

“Come on,” he was goading him, Seth could see. He was trying to distract him from reaching into the glove compartment and taking out the bottle of pills in there. “She looks absolutely mouthwatering—and this time I’m not talking about a meal. I mean, I  _ could _ eat her—”

Seth punched his shoulder. “Shut the hell up.”

“Admit it, then.”

“Admit what? How your girl is riding in front of us and mine is behind us, but you want to talk dirty about Kate?”

Richie snorted. “When the fuck did you get morals?”

“Sonja is my girlfriend, Richard. Simple as that.”

“Santanico ain't technically mine. If I wanted to pick up another girl, especially one as hot as Kate—” Richie saw the next punch coming before Seth’s fist collided with his shoulder. He laughed. 

Muttering a curse, Seth punched the glove compartment now. He growled, “You want me to tell you she's fucking stunning? You want me to tell you I can’t stop thinking about having her again because she looks so goddamn fuckable in that dress, just as she does even in her old pajamas? Well, I fucking can’t, Richard!” He stopped to compose himself. “All I want is for her to be safe, okay? Can you just promise me that you’ll have her back in there?”

All the amusement on Richie’s face diminished. “I’ve got her,” he said firmly before looking over at him with candid loyalty, “and I’ve got  _ you _ , brother. No one gets hurt tonight.”

Bullshit. Utter and complete bullshit. Seth had been in this fucking game way too long to know no one makes it out unscathed when it comes to culebras. He had been almost goddamn positive the damage would come from Carlos walking in unexpectedly into Blanchard’s club—fuck, Seth was even willing to lay down his life when he and the Snake Queen burst in to see that son of bitch trying to have his way with Kate. After Carlito jumped out the window when they overpowered him, he estimated a few bumps and scrapes when dealing with Blanchard and his henchmen. Yet, in all of the possible scenarios of shit going south, Seth did not count on Scott Fuller tearing into his side. 

Richie had decided to have Blanchard for a midnight snack when Seth walked out of the club, still unable to stomach his brother drinking someone dry. His plan was to find Kate, make sure she was stable, before calling in the Snake Queen and Sonja to regroup so they could head back to the warehouse. He had his cellphone out when he heard a crash and Kate gasp in pain. It had been small, barely audible, but he had long ago adjusted his senses to pick up whenever his former partner was in danger. He pulled out his gun and marched out, hell bent on killing another stray asshole who fucking dared to lay a hand on Kate, but Scott was in full culebra mode and all Seth could do was throw himself in front of her.

She screamed when he fell, Scott clawing into his side and tearing out his insides. The culebra hissed, agony and wrath in his glowing, yellow eyes; he bent his head to sink his fangs into Seth’s throat, but a bullet distracted him. Kate had crawled for Seth’s discarded gun. She fired another shot. Regular bullets could momentarily injure Scott, not kill or derail him; yet, it was his sister’s unwavering conviction, hand tight around the gun, that forced him back. He released his hold on Seth when the sun began to poke through the grey clouds, chasing him out.

A part of Kate wanted to run after Scott, but she pushed that compulsion down and dropped the gun. On her knees she pulled Seth into her arms. One of her hands pressed into his wounded side, adding pressure, while the other grabbed his chin.

“Stay with me,” she pleaded, tears pooling in her eyes. “Stay with me, Seth. Please.”

“I ain’t going anywhere, princess,” he heard himself murmur before he closed his eyes and her shouts for Richie distantly echoed in his eardrums.

Two months after he left Kate in a shitty town in Mexico, Seth stumbled into a church after a bar fight gone wrong. He’d been hustling at pool at a hole-in-the-wall, trying to score easy money while simultaneously drinking on the job to prevent the demons in his head from surfacing. Back in the day of crushing unsuspecting assholes with his skills for chump change and a good laugh, Seth knew how to survey the surroundings and the company; he liked a good fucking thrill, but he was never a destructive asshole on purpose, so he knew who not to push. But that was before, when monsters didn’t fucking exist and he wasn’t hooked on every goddamn drug being smuggled south of the border. He was fucking reckless, obnoxious, enraged— _ ‘You’re going to get yourself killed,’ _ his girl used to tell him, fear in her eyes and trembling hands bandaging his wounds. He would tell her he’d be more careful, they did have another job to pull soon, after all; what he had really meant to say was:  _ ‘I can never leave you’.  _ But he did fucking leave her and now he had nothing left to live for. There was no Kate, no Richie, no fucking sanity in this goddamn world. So he stormed one bar after another, drinking and hustling, pushing the fucking limits until a biker lost his patience and stabbed him in the back. When he fell to his knees, his breath hitching, hands numb as he tried to reach for his gun, he was dragged out of the bar and tossed to the curb. He wasn’t sure how long he stayed there, looking at the fucking moon and waiting for death, but it never came. He pulled himself to his feet, walking aimlessly until he found the church. 

“What are you doing, Fuller?”

“Praying,” she told him when he exited the bathroom, towel wrapped around his hips. She was kneeling before their new motel bed, palms pressed together and her eyes shut. 

“I know you’re praying, smartass. My question is  _ what  _ the fuck are you praying for?”

She took a deep breath, holding it for a long, tensed second before she released it past her nostrils. “Your soul.”

Seth laughed as he moved from the door to grab a pair of clean boxers from his bag resting on the nightstand. “Don’t bother. There’s nothing to save at this point.”

“I don’t believe that,” she said so softly, so goddamn sincerely, Seth instantly lost his sneer. “One of these days I won’t be fast enough to keep up with your careless grandeur, Gecko. God will need to intervene to save your life.”

“I don’t believe in religious magic bullshit, princess.”

She opened her left eye to look at him. “I’ll believe for the both of us.”

He walked past the doors and sat in one of the pews, his body shaking. He didn’t believe in God or saints or the Virgin Mary, but he believed in Kate and everything she was about. He closed his eyes and waited for her to find him.

He woke up in an overcrowded hospital with fresh stitches in his back three days later and no sign of her but in his tormented mind. This time, however, when he opened his eyes, she was hovering over him, tender hands cleaning his torn side with precision.

Seth took the opportunity to watch her, to engrave this new memory of her kindness for his collection. It had been years since he saw her this way, cautious and gentle, holding her breath as she touched his skin like she would burn from the contact. It used to unsettle him in the past: four months into their Mexican adventure and he had begun to see her under a new light, making him feel like a true bastard. She was young, innocent, naive, but every time she was near him, skin touching his, Seth wanted to forget everything that made her forbidden. He tried to convince himself he was starved of female contact, but when willing women flirted with him, hand on his shoulder or his thigh, seductive smiles on their painted lips, he’d find Kate in the crowd, so sweet as she sipped on a soda, and knew it was just her he wanted to be with. He would find his way to her, over and over again, tucking her long, brown hair behind her ear to better see her, and she would smile gently at him, unknowingly saving him from further drowning in the dark abyss. When she reacted that way, flushed deep and fingertips trembling, green eyes dark with an undiscovered emotion, he would let himself believe for a single second that maybe she wanted him in more ways that she had him. Time after time he would imagine himself crossing the line, leaning in to press his lips against hers, and wish for the fucking best, but he knew she was not a gamble. He was not willing to risk her for an urge. Still, he daydreamed like a fucking teenage boy with his first crush, studying every growing curve of her body, memorizing how she smelled (like vanilla and his whiskey), taking any excuse to make her laugh, to put his arms around her, to have her rest her head against his chest when she slept...

“You shouldn’t have jumped in,” Kate murmured delicately as she smoothed out the edge of his new bandage. She knew he was awake. Seth never could get a full minute of watching her before she sensed his eyes on her. “It was stupid of you.”

“You say that about everything I do, princess.”

When her eyes did meet his there was a sorrow he did not expect to find. “I had the chance to kill him and I didn’t take it.”

During their time together she used to talk about finding Scott—finding him  _ and  _ Richie. She always said they couldn’t run forever, but Seth counted on it. Mexico was fucking hell, but it was big, and it extended to new territory they could move on to so they could continue putting distance between them and the Twister. The first time she brought it up they had barely escaped with their lives after a job that ended in a bloodbath; he'd been so fucking angry at the situation, at  _ her  _ for believing the world was still good after all the shit they had to endure at the Twister—at the shit they had to endure  _ after  _ the Twister, too—he had to remind her that everyone she loved was fucking dead. She couldn't save Scott, just like he couldn't save Richie. His cruelty almost resulted in them going their separate ways, but she closed the door of the car after he opened it for her ( _ ‘You wanna go play in the darkness, little Miss Sunshine? You be my guest.’ _ ) and told him to keep driving. After some time, after his remorse for trying to break her faith forced him to amend his behavior as best he could, he let her discuss her plans without commenting how they were all fucking delusions. There was no saving Scott; he was a culebra, a goddamn monster. She could not save what was already dead.

One of her hands left his side to rest upon her abdomen. 

Before Seth could ask what changed her mind on the matter, he finally noticed his surroundings: he was on the silk-covered bed in Kate and Rose’s temporary room, a silver, medical table was beside the nightstand, holding scissors, needles, clean and used bandages, ointments, and pills, and a lamp hovered over him.

“Shit,” he exhaled, “what was the damage? It’s like an episode of Grey’s Anatomy in here.”

Kate raised an eyebrow. “Grey’s Anatomy?”

“Not the point,” he grunted when a grin tried to tug at the corner of her mouth.

Her mirth was gone in the next second. “He took a bite out of your side. No venom. He just tore skin. I had to stitch you up and administer antibiotics to prevent an infection. I also gave you a small dose of morphine,” she was quick to add when he tried to adjust himself into a sitting position, “to help with the pain, so no sudden movements or you’ll tear open the wound again.”

“How long was I out for?”

“Just a couple of hours.”

“Where’s everyone? Where’s Rose?” he amended, a flash of worry in his dark eyes.

Her hand on his side flattened against it, her thumb subconsciously rubbing gentle circles on his red, swollen skin. She nodded in the direction of the door; there, peeking from the corner of the frame, was Rose. “You have a lot of explaining to do, Seth Gecko. Your daughter is not happy with you at the moment,” she whispered for his ears only.

Seth attempted to pull himself up again, but Kate smacked his chest. He glared at her; sighing in defeat over his stubbornness, she helped him sit up as carefully as she could.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he called out, “come over here.”

Rose pulled herself out of sight. “ _ No _ ,” her voice echoed, clearly upset. “I don’t wanna hurt you.”

“Trust me, baby girl, you can never hurt me,” Seth assured.

She peeked over again, blinking between her parents to assess the situation before she abandoned her hiding spot. She stopped beside Kate, her attention landing on Seth’s bandaged side. A pout took hold of her bottom lip.

“It’s not as worse as it looks,” he tried to convince her despite the pale yellow of his skin from his loss of blood and the table filled with medical tools and bloodied bandages. 

Kate huffed indignantly at his answer.

Rose, it seemed, did not buy it, either. “Balls are for dancing, Seth, not for fighting.”

“I wasn’t fighting.” Rose frowned at him, crossing her skinny arms over her chest. “Okay, fine. I was fighting.”

“Only because he saved me from a monster,” Kate supplied with an easy tone, but her expression was troubled. 

Unaware of that, Rose gasped. “Was it a dragon?”

“Something like that,” Seth said dismissively before flashing her a careful smile. “I missed you when me and your mom were gone.”

Kate’s eyes found his after he said this, astonishment glittering bright, breaking past her silent worries. Rose pressed a hand gently to his cheek. “I missed you and mama, too, Seth.”

He reached for her tiny hand, pressing a small kiss on the inside of her palm. “Don’t tell the fairies,” he whispered to her, “but I rather spend all day riding bikes with you.”

As Rose giggled, Kate said with a parental tone, “There will be no riding bikes for a while. You two are going to have to settle with watching movies on the setup Richie wheeled in. Eddie wasn’t happy about that, by the way. He just figured out how to use it and now he has to figure out Rose’s tablet.”

“You sacrificed your tablet for me, sweetheart?” Seth asked Rose.

She nodded proudly. “Now you can watch Frozen with me on the big tv.”

“What’s Frozen?” 

Kate laughed wholeheartedly, the sound taking up the entire room and bringing light into it as she glowed like the moon. Seth didn't know what was so funny to her, but he caught himself smiling at the joy on her face. 

“I’ll start on dinner while Rose tells you all about Frozen,” she said as she got to her feet and Rose carefully climbed beside Seth, a remote and a DVD case in hand already.

Turns out Frozen was a fucking nightmare for parents, but a form of opiate for children. If it had been any other circumstance, Seth was sure he would have reached for the nearest blunt object to smash the television in so he could stop the torment, but his little girl singing along to every song, laughing, and reciting every line distracted him long enough until the final, cheesy scene. Rose told him how she promised Billie she would thaw her heart if she was ever cursed by ice, and as she cuddled into his side, big, bright blue eyes looking up at him, she vowed to do the same for him. Seth wasn’t too sure what she was talking about, but he caught a line of true love somewhere in between, and reveled in knowing he had grown on this little girl who was unaware he was her father. 

Kate brought their dinner a little after the movie had finished. She set up a sort of picnic on the bed for her and Rose while she placed a tray over his lap. As they ate they shared anecdotes about their lives that mattered to Seth despite the trivial subjects; he cared to know about Rose’s favorite swing at school, the Batman costume with the pink tutu instead of a utility belt she wore to her first week of ballet class, the tiny shop Kate stumbled upon one summer with the best strawberry gelato, the lovely alzheimer patient she had at the clinic that always confused her for her niece, and how she was thinking about summer camps to send Rose to. 

“What’s your favorite memory, Seth?” Rose asked him as she nudged his chest with her bare foot. He took it, lightly tickling the underside. 

“This one,” he said as she laughed, beautiful and enchanting like her mother, “Right here, right now.”

Seth and Richie blazed through Kansas and Texas like being a Gecko came with an innate crown, but in actuality it made them kings of the infinitely fucked-up. From the moment they were born they were screwed with an impending lifetime of red and blue flashing lights and approaching sirens. He was terrified of what Rose would inherit from him, but as the days went on, as he studied every little thing she did and memorized it, he saw so much of Kate in her to know she had a real chance. Rose had Kate’s long, brown hair, her small nose, her cupid’s bow, her one dimpled cheek, and the scatter of freckles on her chest. It was not only in the physical: the way she giggled when she was excited, her eyes being her tell-tale sign, talking with her hands when she was upset, dancing when she was happy, singing along to any song (even if she knew it or not), her obsession with chocolate, her dislike for pineapples, the kindness she gave, the trust she placed, and the unshakable love she bestowed on the people around her. Rose was truly perfect because of Kate.

“Why Rose?” Seth asked Kate after half an hour of watching their daughter sleep. She was laying between them, clutching on to a panda plush toy Seth got her after she told him it was her favorite animal. It was a sight he would never grow tired of; she was so small, so sweet—his angel.

Kate smoothed Rose’s hair from her eyes. “I told you once that my mama kept my belief alive that something good can come out of being broken. Rose is my miracle. And you told me once that you understood why your mama left you, but what you didn't say was that you forgave her. One day I knew you'd be back, and I wanted to remind you that you could be forgiven, too.”

Seth was not skilled in the fucking art of words. This would be the time he drank straight from whatever hard liquor bottle he had at hand and let his actions speak for him someway, somehow, someday, but he knew he could not escape this. It was fucking inevitable. Kate deserved the truth.

“I wanted to stay with you,” his eyes did not meet hers, choosing instead to focus on Rose’s soft breathing. “I woke up that morning with you in my arms, and I thought it couldn't get any fucking better than that. Then I looked around me, at our shitty motel, and just like every time I opened my eyes, I remembered what we were running from. I remembered what our lives were—what  _ I  _ made our lives become. We had crossed a line, Kate, and no matter how much I wanted it and you consented, I ruined your life. I couldn't take that from you, too. I needed to let you go so you could find something better.”

“That was not your call to make, Seth,” she tried to control her anger, to keep herself from yelling so she wouldn't wake their daughter; the best she could do was stand from the bed. 

She had been inclined to storm out, but Seth’s painful groan forced her to turn. He was trying to follow after her. She marched over to his side, pushing him back down on the mattress. Seth took the opportunity to grab on to her wrist.

“You were everything I had,” she told him. “You were the closest thing to home.”

“Because I led your family to their deaths, Kate,” he hissed. “Or have you forgotten that fucking detail? Because every time I look at you, I remember.”

“How many times did you try to save my life in the Twister? How many times did you save my life after?” Her eyes locked on his, holding on, forbidding him from looking away. “Was that out of remorse, or did you care about me, Seth?”

He squeezed her wrist tighter. 

“I don't blame you,” she told him after silence rung for a minute. “You lost everything in that temple, just like I did. Together...We were broken, both of us, but we tried to survive despite that. Wasn't that enough?”

Gritting his teeth, Seth tried to pull himself on his feet, but once again Kate pressed a hand on his chest, keeping him down. She closed the small distance between them in the process, too.

“I wanted more for you, Kate.”

“But I just wanted you,” she said with tears in her eyes.

Like that night six years ago, Seth knew he was playing with fire, too close to fucking chaos, but it was where he thrived. It was in Kate where he wanted to live and die. So he tugged at her wrist, pulling her down to capture her lips with his. Seth wasn't fucking good with words, but he could show her just how much she meant to him. 

She didn’t fight him on the stolen kiss. No, she melted into him. Her arms wrapped around his neck, pulling herself closer, needing more contact just as he did; her hand tugged at the back of his hair despite the soft, longing way their mouths moved. Time and space were no longer relevant; Kate and Seth could form a world of their own, where nothing and no one existed but them with an empty road ahead they would conquer and discover together. It’s where home awaited.

A crash in the distance shattered the fantasy. Now on high alert, Kate pulled the nightstand drawer open, lifting up the hidden compartment to grab two guns from inside.

“Stay with Rose,” she ordered Seth as she gave him one of the weapons. 

Kate heard him protest, but she slipped out of the room and into the shadows of the warehouse. There was a darkened figured rummaging through the paperwork on Richie’s worktable, back turned to her. She flipped on the light switch before cocking her gun. At the sound and the weapon now pushed against his head, the intruder turned. It was Scott.

She recalled the nightmare and the fervent conviction in it that vowed to kill Scott when she had the chance. It was as if she knew what he had done, the kind of monster he had allowed himself to become under the immoral guidance of Carlos; her only choice was to end him before disaster ensued. In the nightmare his consequences were two bulletholes in her stomach, ripping away her life for a mission that was not his to begin with. Kate died not for others, but due to others. And Scott had led her to it.

Still, she betrayed Freddie in that nightmare because Scott was her brother. He was only a killer because he didn’t know any better. There was no older sister to show him the error of his ways, to guide him down a path that didn’t harm innocent people while he remained a culebra. She had abandoned him in that temple on his first sign of reluctance, yet she had stayed with Seth Gecko for seven months (she would have stayed longer if he hadn’t forced her out), putting up with far worse things, fighting with tooth and nail to save him and herself....How could she have walked out on her own brother without a shred of that much effort? 

“I cleared their path,” Scott’s hands went up in show of immediate surrender. “They’re on their way here.”

The gun shook along with Kate. “Who’s on their way here?”

“Santanico and her new gang of rejects,” he said. “They’re coming in fast. They’ve got—”

Another cocking gun echoed in the open space. Seth trudged forward, a hand on his bandaged skin and the other tightly around his weapon.

“He’s lying.”

“I’m not, asshole,” Scott snarled.

Seth pushed the barrel of his gun on the middle of Scott’s forehead. “You tried to kill Kate,” he accused, earning him a glint of shame from Scott and a cringe from her, “I ain’t buyin’ your story, Tokyo Drift.”

Kate was hesitating again and Seth didn’t really fucking blame her. This piece of shit was still her brother. As much as it fucks up a person, sometimes you had to do the unthinkable to survive. Hell, Richie had implied the same when he tried justifying himself for burning up their father, but Seth still called it for what it was, a goddamn abomination. She could not stain her hands with her brother’s blood. Seth would have to do it for her.

“It’s not us who needs protecting from these fuckers, Kate,” Seth reminded her, alluding to their daughter in the other room. 

She was well aware of that, but her choice on the matter hung in the air when an unfamiliar car screeched in past the metal gate. Kate turned her gun in that direction while Seth kept his on Scott.

“Put down the guns before you hurt yourselves,” Eddie hissed at them as he got out of the driver’s side. Richie came out from the passenger side, moving fast to the backdoors as Santanico and Sonja came speeding in on the black Camaro. 

Kate’s heart was on the verge of bursting when Richie pulled Freddie out from the backseat. She dropped her gun, running to him. He groaned in pain when her arms wrapped around him; she didn’t care about his discomfort because he was alive, he was right here, but Richie told her to ease off. It was then that she noticed the terrible shape Freddie was in: he was more black and purple than he was brown, his left eye was swollen shut, and his neck was covered in red puncture marks (feeding holes, no doubt). 

“How?” Kate turned to Richie, relieved tears falling down her cheeks as they both helped Freddie to the nearest seat. “You were supposed to be finding Malvado’s hideout.”

“We found it,” he told her with a crooked grin.

“Jacknife Jed’s,” Santanico scoffed, clearly less enthused about their discovery than Richie was. Her brown eyes burned black. “It’s a trucker’s stop. Nothing like the feeding ground the Twister was.”

Freddie hissed, his palms forming fists as Kate begun to peel off his dirty clothes. “The guests aren’t always the meal there. Jed’s is the cover up to all the illegal shit Malvado does below.”

“How did you find him?” Kate asked again. “You weren’t supposed to go in.”

“We didn’t go in,” Sonja said, now standing beside Seth, gently rubbing a hand down and up his arm. “We caught this kid helping him out.”

Kate instantly turned to Scott. “You...You helped Freddie escape?”

Scott shrugged.

“Richie says the kid’s your brother, Katie,” Eddie’s tone implied a question. When Kate nodded in confirmation, he pointed a finger at Seth, a frown taking over his features, “then why the hell are you pointing a gun at him? The code, you son of a bitch. Remember the fucking code. This ain’t the way we treat—”

Uncle Eddie’s never fucking ending reprimand about family was cut short when a motorcycle entered the gate. Everyone moved for their weapons.

“He had you followed!” Seth shouted. “The code also says never to buy some bullshit of turning a new leaf!”

Richie and Santanico morphed into their culebra forms. They were about to launch for the kill, but Kate yelled for them to stop as she threw herself in the middle of the potential crossfire. 

She knew who it was before the helmet was removed; she recognized the motorcycle from the times she rode on it, warm, California air weaving through her hair. Freddie knew who it was, too. He lowered the crowbar he had gotten a hold of, loosening the rigidity of his body as he sat back down. 

“Benito,” he exhaustly greeted.

“Who the fuck is Benito?” Seth demanded, he and the others not yet releasing their weapons.

Benito removed his helmet as he got off his motorcycle. He moved to Kate, ignoring the snarl Richie gave and the gun Seth pointed at him. He pulled her into a loving embrace, burying his face into the crook of her neck before she could form a proper sentence. 

A loud, excited giggle broke across the room. Rose ran up, shouting, “Daddy!”

Seth turned to his daughter, quick to hide his gun, but she flew past him and straight into some unknown man’s arms.


	11. Tsunami Tides

A tsunami drowned the warehouse with absolute turmoil. Kate found herself gasping for air, kicking her legs, trying to stay afloat regardless of knowing there was no way out of this catastrophe. Hell was coming, but a little angel held it off for a sliver of time. 

“Daddy, you’re here,” Rose cheered as she was scooped up by Benito. 

“ _Aqui_ _estoy_ , _pequeñita_ ,” he returned, relief and joy mixing in his words just as they appeared on his face when he clung on to her. “I’ve got you now.”

“I missed you.”

“Hey,” called Freddie from his chair, “what about me?”

“Freddie! You’re here, too!” Rose kicked her legs as a signal that she wanted to be put down immediately. When Benito let her go, she rushed over to Freddie. “Oh no,” she gasped, halting herself from hugging him, her eyes wide, “you’re hurt,  _ nino _ . Just like Seth.”

At the mention of the name, Kate wanted to let herself be dragged down by the force of the tsunami if that meant she could avoid looking at Seth. Seth who just witnessed his daughter acknowledging someone else as her father, who had more love, more of a connection with others who were not him. 

Fortunately, there was a person in the room willing to throw a lifeline out to Kate. Eddie cleared his throat, walking over to Freddie and Rose. “Come on, sunshine. How about me and you go to your room while the adults talk about boring stuff?”

Rose pouted, shaking her head firmly. “No. I want to stay, Grandpa Eddie. My daddy and  _ nino _ are here. I want to be with them.”

“Rosita,” Benito called from where he stood, “go on.”

“You won’t leave, right, Daddy?”

“No,  _ pequeñita _ . We’ll be here,” he swore. 

The moment after Eddie hoisted Rose on to his hip, joking about her breaking his bones, both walking off to the direction of the room, Seth lost every ounce of control he had left. He shoved Sonja out of his way, charging forward with his gun out, but Richie intercepted him. Kate backed away, a knot in her throat, as he growled like an unhinged beast, like something marred and broken and ready to kill. She was not entirely sure who he wanted to hurt, her or Benito. 

“ _ Seth _ ,” Richie snarled, pushing him further back until they collided against a metal cabinet where they kept other weapons under lock. “Calm the fuck down!”

“Don’t tell me to calm down, Richard!” He shoved back, trying to break free. His dark, enraged gaze then found Kate. “You replaced me! You fucking gave my daughter to some asshole!”

“Rose is not something to give away!” Kate found herself yelling back, taking a daring step forward, no longer willing to drown in the unavoidable when he decided to accuse her of something he was the only one to blame for. “Ben has been in her life for three years, earning her affection and trust! He was there when she got sick, when she started school, and learned to swim—and when it wasn’t him, it was Freddie! Where the hell were  _ you _ , Seth?” Tears fell from her eyes, furious and heartbroken; the version of who she really was. “I gave you everything, and you abandoned me!”

When Seth roared, fighting Richie again with all his strength, there were only two people in the room who knew it was not entirely out of rage against Kate. It was out of loathing for himself; for every damn, unlucky turn he had made since he set foot out of prison. He thought he made the right choice in letting go of Kate, setting her free so she could find a version of the dream she had before culebras and Geckos, but it blew up in his face. He lost Kate and he lost his daughter because he didn't deserve them in the first place.

Kate turned away from him, covering her face as her tears fell like waterfalls at her feet because she knew it was not entirely his fault. He had not known about Rose when he made the selfish, unwarranted decision that she was better off without him.

Although his pain tolerance was higher than the average human being, it did not make him indestructible (as much as he hoped to be); still, Richie let his brother sink his nails into his skin, tearing at the flesh as the damaged devil inside wanted to come out and seek revenge for everything life had taken from him. Neither of them (Kate and Richie) blamed Seth for his reaction, but rather mourned along with him. 

No one in the warehouse was aware how much time lapsed as they drowned in aggressive silence. It could have been hours, days, weeks, but Freddie took the plunge not to allow one more second to pass. He got to his feet as best he could, hissing from every open infliction on his body, but held his ground when he stood in the middle, summoning attention. 

“Malvado is coming,” he shattered the resentment with potential danger. “He knows who the prophecy is about. It’s why he kept me alive, because he knows as the peacekeeper I need to be present for it to come to pass.”

“Why does he want it to happen?” Santanico demanded, arms crossing over her chest as her full attention was not on the drama, but on the plan for her long awaited revenge. “Oculto, too. He was waiting for you to get to the tablet, but the prophecy promises to  _ destroy  _ them.”

Freddie limped a little closer to Kate. He reached a hand to her arm, squeezing. He waited for her to turn; when their eyes met, she could see the inescapable truth burning in him. She tried to keep the sob trapped in her throat, but it sounded out, echoing across the warehouse. They all turned to her; even Seth who was heaving, body shaking, in the distance as he attempted to reel in the rage he had let off the leash. 

“There’s a second part to the prophecy,” Freddie continued gravely. “The light is the key for the brothers to destroy the Nine Lords, but if the light falls in their hands, the Nine will use it to appease the Gods. The light’s purity is worth a thousand souls. If they....If they sacrifice the light, they unleash hell on earth while they make way to El Rey.”

Kate staggered on her feet when her knees grew weak. Benito put an arm around her waist, helping her to stand before Richie could move to do the same. He glared at the man, but said as gently as he could past sharp teeth, “we ain’t gonna let that happen, Katie. We’re gonna bring down Malvado. We know where he is, we just need to plan—”

“The prophecy isn’t about me,” Kate cried. “You know it isn’t, Richie. You’ve known all along that I’m not the light.”

Richie dropped his gaze for a moment, jaw clenching tight in hesitance. Of course he had known. It was  _ Richie _ ; his perceptive skills were sharp and his intelligence of the world around him had only grown more acute since transforming into a culebra. He knew life had not been kind to Kate (especially when they cross paths with her), and that dampened the light within. Still, her light was not destroyed, it was there, iridescent, calling out to everyone searching for something beautiful. It was unavoidable that the product of her insides, of her blood and flesh, would have her light, but also as an innocent soul, shine by a tenfold over Kate's. 

Seth could see his brother’s bullshit from behind him, so he stepped forward to get the truth. “What does she mean, Richard?”

In his culebra form, Richie could compose himself to hold Seth back, to not let him in and coax out the things he didn’t want to reveal than he ever could when he was human. He was going to put up a fight, but there was no time for deception anymore. Santanico, as always, would have to expose the lies for everyone to see. 

“Rose is the light of the prophecy," she said. "You’ve heard Richard say how much Kate shines—we can see that as culebras, but her light is nothing compared to your daughter’s.”

Seth wavered just as Kate had. He was about to rebuff the Snake Queen, call her out on her fucking lie, but the way Kate tiptoed a breakdown and Richie couldn’t meet his eyes told him it was not another fabricated dig she was taking at him.

“They still think it’s you, Kate,” Scott said from the background. “Tanner is with the culebras, and he told them about trying to sacrifice you back in the Twister for your light. When I saw you at the club, I wanted to change you so you couldn’t be used, but Seth got in the way.”

“That’s when he decided to help me escape,” Freddie contributed to his tale. “Scott said you had a run in with Carlos and he would come for you. We were going to find you when we ran into these guys.”

“Carlos betrayed Malvado. He's searching for the light to destroy him and make himself the new king of the culebras.” Scott stepped out of the shadows to approach Kate, but she cringed when he tried to touch her. 

“How do I know,” she muttered, “that you aren’t working for them, Scott?”

“I’m your brother, Kate.”

“You chose them over me in that temple,” she blamed him despite knowing she was at fault, too. “I...I have to kill you if you are.”

“I’m your  _ brother _ ,” he repeated steadfast, a glow to his eyes she wished with all her heart was sincerity. “I’m a culebra, Kate. I can’t change that, but you’re my only family. And you had a kid. Shit,” he chuckled humorlessly. “With a Gecko. Dad’s probably kissing God’s feet to absolve you of that—”

“Not the approach you should be taking, kid,” Freddie advised.

“The point is, you’re my sister and she’s my niece. There is no choice, Kate. It’s  _ you _ ,” Scott finished.

As Kate began to look like her broken parts could be mended with Scott’s arrival and his potential loyalty to the Fuller family, Seth interrupted the moment with, “All fucking touching, but we still have a problem. Our daughter,” he hissed, sure to emphasize the words when he glared into the eyes of the man who thought he could have Rose, “is in danger. We need to arm up now. If this Malvado prick wants war, I'm gonna give him fucking war.”

“You're going to get these people killed,” Benito cut in. “You're angry and scared. You're not in the right state of mind to go in and take down a culebra and his empire. Worst of all, you're going to put Rosita in danger.”

“Her name is  _ Rose _ , asshole. In English,” Seth growled, his gun pointing forward. Benito looked on, unchallenged by the threat. “And you're no one to fucking tell me what I can't do.”

“I know you can't do this alone,” Benito said before he turned to look down at Kate. He cupped her cheek tenderly. “I've got hunters in this area. We can go to their base and set up a secure perimeter for Rosita. Then we can plan out the attack with them.”

“You're not taking my daughter outta here.”

“This place is comprised.”

“The hell it is—”

Seth was on the verge of pulling the trigger. Kate could see that; she knew him too well to know he was contemplating it, too wrapped up in fury and guilt and worry to think about what was right or wrong. There were only two people in the room who could get him to see reason, who could persuade him: her and Richie. Yet, if the glare of utter dislike and solidarity with his brother against Benito was anything to go by, Kate knew Richie would not sway to her side while he thought someone else had come in and stolen what was theirs.

She took a deep breath, settling the shaking of her hands. “I want to go to the hunter base.” Both Geckos looked instantly betrayed, both narrowing eyes at her like they were possessed by the same beast. “Think about it,” she said softly, pulling out all the preacher’s daughter bravado that got Geckos squirming, that got their consciences surfacing from the shadows. “We are short of people. If we stay here, Eddie and I would be the only ones looking after Rose. All of you would be out there, moving things around so we could go in to kill Malvado. That is not enough protection. Seth,” she pressed when he looked ready to protest, “we need to put as many barriers as it takes between Rose and these culebras.  _ Please _ .”

Seth was a proud person, too damn arrogant for his own good; everyone present knew that just by the way he stood and the fight in his dark eyes. If he felt cheated, if he felt wronged and worthless, he would make sure to bring hell to prove he was untouchable. Still, beneath his Gecko instincts, beneath his reflexes to punch back before he was hit first, his blood and heart had been changed the second his eyes landed on Rose. Beneath all of his chaos— _ over _ all of his chaos—he was a father. That was the side Kate was appealing to. She needed him to choose Rose over his wounded pride. 

And she believed without a doubt that he would.

“Let's get one thing straight, asshole,” Seth warned with his gun, “the moment my brother and me don't think you can deliver, we’re bringing Rose  _ and _ Kate right back here. And the next time you trespass, I'm putting a bullet into your skull.”

With an arm tight around Kate’s waist, Benito looked Seth straight in the eye when he said, “They're my girls. I’ll always protect them.”

After it had been settled they would take their misfit camp to the hunter base, Benito left to start making arrangements while Richie tailed him ( _ ‘I don’t fucking trust you, Benny. You gonna lead me and mine underground, I wanna know everything, down to what kinda toilet paper you got on stock.’ _ ) to get acquainted with the route. Santanico forced Scott to take her back to Jacknife Jed’s for them to scout out the perimeter and learn more of the ins and outs of the place. That left the rest in the warehouse to pack up and sort out whatever needed to be sorted out before the departure. To say the situation was tensed—to say it was incredibly awkward—was an understatement. Kate could not look anyone in the eye that was not Freddie or Rose, even then, she hardly made conversation. She spent her time slowly and carefully tending to every cut, bruise, and broken bone Freddie had while Rose told him all about her Uncle Richie and his farming, her Grandpa Eddie and his bad-word movie he made her promise not to tell her mama he let her watch once, Sonja and her needles that colored people in, Kisa and their playful beauty pageants, and Seth and their games and him going to a ball with her mama. In the background, Seth listened intently as he filled a bag with sharp objects.

The day after, just before the sun took over the sky, they set off. Rose and Kate traveled in a car manned by Freddie and Santanico to avoid any offended parties. She clutched tightly onto Rose’s hand as she slept; Kate kept her eyes on her instead of watching the scenery passing them by. She stirred awake at almost seven in the morning, right when the car came to a stop. Santanico instructed her not to exit before she was certain everyone had pulled up and there were no surprises. Kate did not hold her breath; the bases were always the safest locations. 

“You are fucking kidding me,” Seth scoffed as he slammed his car door shut. 

“The most secure location in all of Texas,” Benito proclaimed as he went to stand by Kate, who had Rose on her hip.

“This might not work,” Eddie heeded with mock. “You have three culebras and a whole bunch of fucking sinners. We sure as shit gonna burn crossing those doors.”

“Especially with that language,” Sonja added.

“I’m game if you are, Uncle Eddie,” Richie grinned.

“Does it feel like home, Kate?” Scott inquired, hesitation in his eyes.

“We weren’t Catholic,” she reminded solemnly.

“Are we at a castle?” Rose asked the general audience.

“If you want it to be,  _ hermosa _ ,” Santanico said.

“And we are your knights in shining armor, darling,” Freddie smiled at Rose before he began the march onward.

Ahead of them, encompassed by an empty, dry patch of acreage with scattered yellow-green, overgrown grass, was a decaying mission that had been built long before to spread the word of God among the native tribes of the Americas ( _ ‘They forced them to believe in their White God,’ _ Santanico huffed.  _ ‘I should know, I tore off their heads when they came to us.’ _ ) When they reached the blockade of metal, Benito pulled out his cellphone, sent a text, and within two seconds it parted; six armed men intercepted them, forcing a pat-down on all of them before they were allowed in. The land within the closed perimeter was in better condition than on the outside; there were willowy trees, bushes with an array of vibrant flowers, a man-made pond with lily pads floating over it, vegetable patches, and a small, strawberry field. Its beauty briefly distracted from the jagged bricks crumbling the architecture. At the second metal blockade, a woman with fire-red hair and a rifle strapped over her shoulder waited for them; she nodded once at Benito before motioning them to follow after her. Kate abruptly stopped when an ancient, perfectly intact altar greeted them inside.

“Katie! Rosita!” squealed a voice that echoed around the church. Kate had to force her eyes from the altar to notice the group of hunters entering from a backroom. The one that called out was Nix (real name Agatha Nixon); a young, excitable woman with white hair and purple contact lenses. 

Rose pulled on her mama’s hand to run off toward Nix. She giggled happily as she was scooped up and twirled. It was then that Lola (wife to Kate’s weapons dealer Chuy), dark hair and covered in tattoos, stood out from the throng of hunters, as well as two other familiar faces (Cisco, cousin to Benito, and Hiru, a hunter from Japan she met last year). Kate was not just a fellow hunter to these people, she was their friend. Now her heart dropped and crashed at seeing them, not because she longed to, but for knowing they were here for the inevitable fight. 

“Chin up, Fuller,” Lola told her firmly, though her brown eyes reflected their easy comradeship for a moment. She then cast her gaze on the group around Kate, whistling low and jarred. “I knew you had a life before us, but this...this is gonna take some getting used to.”

“You brought three vipers into our base,” spat a bald, burly hunter Kate was unfamiliar with as he took a long sniff at the air, hand clutching the dagger secured around his waist. 

“One’s her brother, Marlo,” Benito clarified. 

“One’s _ la fucking Diosa _ ,” the man Marlo added with distaste. Santanico’s eyes flashed yellow, on the verge of hissing out and exposing her fangs before Rose’s laughter echoed around them again. She forced herself to swallow her venom. “And the other is the fucking Gecko that let her off her leash.”

“They’re family,” Kate found her voice despite the urge crawling up her spine that triggered her fight-or-flight instincts. “We can trust them.” She didn’t meet anyone in the eye as she said this, instead she asked Lola to show her to their room so she could get Rose out of her pajamas. 

Without letting silence fall on them, Scott and Freddie were given the room to share with the hunters the layout of Jacknife Jed’s before any plan on how to get in could be made. They spent three hours hunched over a desk, drawing out a blueprint, labeling every hall and corner, while Santanico watched over them, eager to learn every turn in the fortress below the trucker’s stop that hosted Malvado. Some of the hunters were against sharing their headquarters with the very same monsters they dedicated their lives to kill, but Benito, who held respectability and command in the circle, instructed for them to be shown around the main parts of the mission that did not reveal too much, but provided them accommodation during their stay. 

Kate never stopped believing in God. The horrific, life-altering events that took place in the Titty Twister simply coerced her into changing the opinion she had of Him. After all, He had abandoned her family long before they entered the temple; then He deserted her after she made it out alive from there (not before she had to shove a stake through her daddy’s heart), leading her to a life of sin she would eventually learn to label as forms of survival. The following years she prayed once for someone else and once for forgiveness. Since then, she never found herself kneeling before a cross to talk to God. She knew He was up there, watching over her, but her resentment made her dodge Him and the sacred word like a scorned lover who was forsaken at the altar while dressed in white, a heart heavy with fragile trust and adoration. 

Then Seth jumped in front of Scott, diverging his attack onto himself to spare her. When her hands were covered in his blood, when his skin turned pale and his lips purple right before her eyes, Kate  _ prayed _ . She prayed harder than she had in years for him to live, for him not to become a culebra, for there not to be irreversible damage, for him not to lose time with his daughter after just having met her. 

God answered her prayers—the ones she offered and the ones she kept to herself. 

She stood at the edge of the chapel-turned-meeting-room, eyeing the crucifix at the center of the altar, giant and gold, heavy and demanding. Half of her wanted to bestow gratitude, an instinct she discovered had not withered with time and disappointment, but the other half wanted to blame God for the mismatched fragments of her heart wanting to put themselves back together in order to be gifted once again to the criminal who had stolen and shattered it years ago. 

Seth was sat on one of the pews, watching Rose learn how to jump rope with Nix and another young hunter. Sonja was talking to him, her voice a distorted murmur for Kate, but she could see her frustration burn her cheeks red. He wasn’t listening to her. He wasn’t even aware she was beside him. Kate recognized his unyielding distraction from her many times caught on the other side of it; her experiences had been due to the drugs he pumped into his system to pluck him out of their reality, but now, in the present moment, she knew he was suffocating by the thousands ways all of this could have been avoided. When Sonja pushed him, expecting a reaction but getting none, she left his side; Kate wanted to protest her feet from moving in his direction, but she would always be defenseless against a hurting Seth.

A warm hand was placed on his arm, fingers carefully tracing up his bicep to press against the nape of his neck. She waited patiently for him to pull himself out of his tormented thoughts and find her eyes. She saw the fight in his, the one torn between hating her and giving in to this  _ thing  _ between them that only served to drive them both insane.

“I was afraid of Rose,” he said to her. “I was afraid her life would be ruined by me, but I looked at her and saw you, pure and noble, and I wanted to believe she would be alright because of that. But my blood made her a weapon. Everything I fucking touch breaks.”

Kate’s hand pressed harder against his neck, forcing him to look back at her when he blinked away. “You didn’t ruin her, Seth. It’s this world that’s screwed up.”

“Fucking vampires,” he grunted. “And I thought that two-headed frog was the strangest shit I’d ever see.”

“We’ll tell her,” she whispered when the emotion took over. “We’ll tell Rose you’re her father.”

His jaw clenched as he shook his head, the small, stray smile wiping off his lips. “I haven’t earned it yet, Kate. I told you once I wanted to do right by my little girl, and I’m sure as hell gonna make that happen. I will take Malvado out. Then we’ll deal with what comes after.”

Kate had not allowed herself to contemplate what would come after. She just knew there were two possibilities, and both ended with death; hers or the Nine. She had known everything would change when she left California with the Geckos, but she never wanted to dive into it because she was afraid of the unresolved feelings in her chest. She was afraid that six years of telling herself she did not care about them had not led to that end result. Sure enough, she found that affection buried beneath the cobwebbed, disastrous life she had been given when she met them at the Dew Drop Inn. Most terrifying of all, she rediscovered the enticing, overwhelming need she had for Seth. She had vowed to the ocean waves that she would move on from him, forget his name, the way he smelled, the way he felt, but the thing about waves was that they always returned, often bigger and mightier than before. 

Still, she had a life outside of their Bonnie and Clyde Mexican rendition, just like he did. She spent six months surviving in Sonora, alone and pregnant, five years raising Rose, working hard and giving all she had to her, and three years with Benito, reclaiming a normalcy she desperately needed and knew she deserved. Kate didn’t know about Seth’s life in the six years they pretended the other did not exist, but he somehow ended with Sonja. She had to be something special for him to bring into this turbulent life of running from authority while killing culebras along the way.  

“How did you meet my sister?” Scott asked as they all sat around for an uncomfortable dinner (the culebras drinking back hard liquor they shared with Seth and Eddie). He had Rose on his lap, her tablet on the fold-out table that had been brought in. He was showing her kitten videos on Youtube; Rose prolonged her attention span because ( _ ‘I get another uncle, mama! _ ’) she was always intrigued by meeting new people. 

“Freddie joined the hunters and I helped find the weapons,” Kate answered as she moved her food around the styrofoam plate, not particularly hungry. 

“I didn’t mean the hunters. I meant how did you and Benny meet?”

Richie chuckled darkly into his drink. ( _ ‘We had a dog named Benny, remember, Seth? He went around taking shit that wasn’t his, biting the neighbors. He got old right along with his antics. We had to put him down. Yeah, that was a fun experiment. Or mercy kill, whatever you wanna call it.’ _ )

“We met three years ago. Freddie was working a culebra case and Kate made a connection to something similar in Sonora. She called up  _ mi madre _ , whom she knew because she gave Kate a job when she was homeless and starving after kidnappers ruined her life.” Benito was not a man who allowed his anger to cloud his judgement, nor did he put it on display for people to see, yet there he was, words sharp like a sword. It made Seth grip his glass and Richie’s eyes flash yellow. “My mother sent me to assist them and ever since then...”

“Love at first sight,” Nix sighed dreamily. 

“Eyes find eyes, they say,” Benito added as he looked down at Kate with a loving gaze. 

“Motherfucker,” Richie hissed. He would have launched himself forward if it had not been for Eddie smacking him beside the head when Rose gaped back at him.

Kate found herself blushing at the attention. She stabbed the pasta on her plate with her fork and shoved it in her mouth to keep herself occupied.

“Did you do it, Benito?” Lola asked from her seat. 

“I did,” he said with a grin. “Rosita was present for it, too. Weren’t you,  _ mi vida? _ ”

Rose giggled as she nodded. “Daddy did it at the beach after our picnic.”

At the cursed word, Seth knocked back his glass of liquor before snatching the bottle from Santanico to pour himself another.

“Did what?” Nix demanded. “I want to know.”

“I think we all want to know,” Scott said, raising a questioning brow. 

Benito stood from his place beside Kate. He reached into his pocket, pulling out the diamond ring he had given her less than two weeks back. Nix squealed loudly, her purple eyes wide as she covered her mouth with her palms after Lola shushed her. “You gave this to Margie because you weren’t sure if you were coming back. This life...It’s not an easy one, Kate. We both knew that, but we decided it was worth the shot. I told you I wanted to give you and Rosita everything, but I also know that nothing is certain. You said yes when the future was clear, but now we aren't really guaranteed tomorrow, so what if we got married now? We have a church and Cisco is ordained.”

Kate closed her eyes, hoping the tsunami that followed after her would come and drag her away. She wanted God to get off of the cross and point her in the right direction, to unjumble the emotions inside of her that were powerless when it came to being attracted to chaos by the name of Gecko. 

“Mama!” Rose called, excitement in her voice, forcing Kate to open her eyes.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Let’s get married now.”

The hunters broke out into cheers that were quickly followed by a happy Rose, but Kate was absolutely certain the tears in her eyes were for renouncing the one desire that was never really hers to have in the first place. And if Seth’s empty seat was anything to go by, he knew, too, that their story was not a fairytale. 


	12. Ashes to Ashes

There was not much of the past couple of days that Rose understood: the guns Seth and Richie had when they came to their house in California, Margie crying when she and her mama left to meet Freddie, not being able to say goodbye to Billie, the hesitance her mama had with everyone when they were staying in Richie and Kisa’s odd house, Seth getting hurt, her daddy and  _ nino _ Freddie arriving, making everything tensed, where Scott came from (her mama never told her she had a  _ real  _ brother), why they left the odd house for the castle in the middle of nowhere, why everyone carried a gun like in that bad-word movie Grandpa Eddie let her watch, why Freddie wouldn’t tell her when Margie and Billie were coming, and why everyone was constantly angry at each other. Rose was confused over the dark and crumbling places they were staying at, the new people she was meeting, but one thing she knew was that she was happy. Her family was getting bigger (one grandpa, two uncles, and one aunt!) and familiar faces, like the loveable Nix who always played hide-n-seek with her, were around. Yet, she seemed like the only one that was. Her mama had hardly spoken to her or anyone, and she was often alone, looking up at that giant cross in the main room that slightly scared Rose, but her Uncle Scott assured her God only intended to protect her even if she didn’t understand Him. Her mama wasn’t the only one that looked sad, either. Since before they arrived to the castle, Seth frowned more than he had since she met him, and he was constantly drinking something from a metal flask that made his eyes hazy ( _ ‘He’s just dealing with some stuff, sunshine,’ _ Grandpa Eddie told her.  _ ‘He’ll come around. If he doesn’t, I’ll whip him.’ _ ). He was never around, and when he was, he left before Rose could approach him. That started to make her sad, too.

When they were in California, Rose’s mama always oversaw bathtime and bedtime. After they ate dinner with Margie and Billie (sometimes Freddie when he wasn’t fighting the bad guys), and a little bit of television, her mama would fill up the tub with warm water, bring her toys of choice for the night, and sit at the edge of the tub as Rose got all wrinkly and clean. If her mama had been working all day, those were the times she talked to Rose about her day, about the people she helped at the clinic, and how much she missed her when she was gone. Rose would tell her mama she missed her, too, because she always did, and she would tell her everything she did at school. Never more than forty minutes in the bathroom, her mama would pat her dry, dress her in her pajamas, brush her hair, and lead her to her bedroom. Rose would choose a book for her mama to read to her, and before she closed her eyes, she always pressed a kiss to her forehead and looked outside the window ( _ ‘I’m chasing the monsters away, baby.’ _ ). Occasionally, if her mama was kept at work to continue helping people, Margie would take over, but for as long as Rose could remember, it was just her mama. Then she met Seth. For nine days (she counted) the last thing she saw before falling asleep was Seth and her mama looking over her. So when the last two nights only her mama was there, quietly watching over her, sadness in her beautiful eyes, Rose began to miss Seth. 

“Put on your socks, baby,” her mama told her as she hung the towel she used to dry Rose’s hair with over an old chair, “while I go clean up really quickly.”

Rose did as her mama said, but when she went back in the direction of the bathroom, she jumped off her own twin bed and exited the room. She pushed down the hood of her cow onesie she demanded she wore that night, and walked down the opposite end of the bathroom. She was not sure how the rooms worked in the castle since there were so many, but her Uncle Richie had told her once he was not too far from hers; she wanted to find him so she could ask where Seth was. She did not expect to find him with Uncle Richie when she knocked once before pushing the door open. Least of all, Rose had not expected to see them fighting.

Uncle Richie dropped Seth after his hand had been around his throat. Seth gasped for air, his eyes red, as her uncle turned to her. For a moment she thought his eyes were yellow before the blue in them looked gently at her. “Hey, Clarabelle,” he smiled after clearing his throat, calling her a nickname that once made her mama laugh and Seth roll his eyes. “What brings you by?”

Rose glanced over at Seth, noticing the rubber tie around his arm. “Are you a nurse, too, Uncle Richie?” she asked. “My mama takes blood out from people like that. She showed me once when I went to visit her at the clinic.”

“As much as I love taking out blood, I wasn’t doing that. Maybe you should ask my brother what he was about to do.”

Seth immediately undid the rubber band, standing up and looking like nothing had been out of the ordinary, although he elbowed Richie hard in the ribs. “What’s going on, sweetheart? Why aren’t you in bed?”

“I miss you, Seth,” Rose said so clearly it echoed around the room. Both Richie and Seth looked surprised by it, it made her frown a little in return. It reminded her of the times she told Billie about the glowing figures that sometimes were outside her window but didn't believe her about it. 

“You do?” he whispered back, unsure.

She nodded automatically. “You said you would always read me a bedtime story, but you haven’t.”

“I, uh, I don’t think—”

“Please?” she asked, her bottom lip pouting. 

He exchanged a look with Richie, uncertainty in his eyes, but then he smiled at her and she couldn’t help smiling back at him. “Sure thing, baby girl,” he extended his hand for her to take. 

Her mama was still not back from the shower when she and Seth returned to the room. He was nervous, something Rose could not understand as she pulled out her TMNT backpack so she could grab a book. Once she had selected The Cat in the Hat ( _ ‘Really, sweetheart? _ ’), she climbed onto her bed, patting the small, open side for him. He took the book and she cuddled into his side. He looked down at her; Rose was never too sure about the things adults feel because, as Margie would always say, they were complicated, but she knew what unhappiness was, and Seth had it. She hugged him tighter, wishing he would be in better spirits again. 

Rose eyelids were fluttering close after a few minutes into the book when there was a gentle knock on her door and Kisa poked her head in. 

“What?” Seth demanded in a low voice. 

“I wanted to see if she was awake.”

“For what? A sacrificial ritual?” 

Kisa was glaring at Seth, her eyes flashing yellow just like Rose had seen in her Uncle Richie’s, but the upset moment was interrupted by her mama. Her voice echoed behind Kisa, then the door opened all the way as she walked in with a towel wrapped around her and her hair dripping down her back.

Her mama focused on Seth, her sadness growing, too, before she immediately averted her eyes. “What’s wrong?” she asked Kisa.

“There’s going to be meteor shower tonight. I thought your  _ pequeñita _ would like to see.”

“Falling stars?” Rose gasped, kicking her legs from underneath the blanket Seth had tucked in her with, now wide awake. “Oh! Can I, please, Mama? Please?  _ Please? _ ”

Her mama glanced at the old clock on the nightstand; Rose was sure she would not let her, but then she sighed, nodding. “Okay. Just put on a sweater. And not too long.”

Rose cheered as she hopped off the bed and Kisa reached for the nearest jacket available and helped her put it on. 

“You should inspect Seth’s wound, Kate. Richard said he’s having some discomfort. Maybe give him some numbing cream before he finds other methods of dealing with it,” Kisa said with a grin as she took Rose’s hand and let her out the door.

“Fucking culebras,” Seth hissed to himself, about to stand before Kate appeared before him. He forgot how to breathe when her beautiful emerald eyes looked down at him. For a brief moment they were tender, sweet, miserable, and then they were engulfed with fire. 

“Are you using again?” she accused as her hand gripped his chin. 

He should have pushed her away, but he couldn’t find the will to do so. Instead, with a grunt, he said, “No. I’m not, okay? Fuck Richard and the Culebra Queen for saying I am.”

“Why would they lie about something like that, Seth?”

“Maybe because Richard found some needles on—” The rest of his grudging sentence was silenced when her hand left his chin to slap him.

“You don’t get to do this to your daughter, you hear me?” she hissed, tears in her eyes despite their anger. “You don’t get to shoot yourself up with poison, Seth. Not again. You become the man she needs you to be.”

Seth clenched his jaw, closing his eyes as his fists shook. “And who’s that, Kate? You already fucking gave my place to Benny. How’s that gonna work out, by the way? When you two get married? Kate and Rose Mexican-Vampire-Slayer?”

She took a step back from him, her anger on a slope downward. She tightened a hand around the knot of her towel. “Rose Gecko Fuller,” she whispered. “That’s her name. That will always be her name.”

He opened his eyes. “I wondered for six goddamn years if I made the right choice back in Mexico. Most days I convinced myself it was, but then I saw you again, I met Rose, and I punched a fucking mirror because, for the first time since I closed that fucking door on your face, I thought I chose wrong. I just wanted you to have the life you dreamt of, and you got that, didn’t you? You became a nurse, found a guy to put a ring on your finger and live a life just like your parents had.”

“Dreams change, Seth,” she murmured, a stray tear rolling down her cheek. 

“But you still said yes, Kate,” he reminded as he stood. “With good fucking reason, too. He isn’t a bastard.”

He was towering over her again, but instead of trying to intimidate her, to force her into changing her opinion on something he was against, she saw acceptance on his part for what she had chosen. She looked up at him, his dark eyes storming with a grief she knew all too well, and realized every version of him, even the ones he loathed, even the ones that stained his hands red, she wanted. She spent seven months of her life condemning him for getting hooked on narcotics, but she had it just as bad as him. Kate spent six years of her life being addicted to Seth. He was her absolute ruin, everything that distorted the pretty images of reality with incomprehensible, frightening shapes, yet he was everything freeing and intoxicating and wonderful that made her come back for more. 

And Kate always wanted more. 

She placed a hand on his shoulder, pulling herself up on her toes, never looking away. He appeared just as afraid as their first night together, but she still pressed her lips onto his. Unlike that night, he did not push her off; his left hand went to her waist, squeezing as his tongue reclaimed her mouth. Seth was well aware he was a sinner, and Kate stopped believing long ago life could be lived without committing one, two, or three along the way. She helped people kill others (even if they were demons); giving in to her addiction after years of sobriety was not going to lead her to hell. If it did, well, at least she had him once more before fire consumed her.

Her mouth moved to the side of his neck, just above the inked flames, and Seth felt himself shiver as her tongue traced the marks, gently biting along the way. It lasted only a few delicious seconds before her fingers reached for the hem of his wife-beater and pulled up; he had to help her take it off, and once he did so, once his focus came back to her, she had let the towel drop. There was a shadow of that timid girl in a shady Mexican motel, but there was so much more to her now, too. Kate was a woman. Her body had changed along with her in the past six years, making her rounder in all the right places, and still fucking perfect in his eyes. He didn’t give her a chance to blush before he scooped her up, kissing her harder now, to lay her on the nearest bed.

Her fingers moved to his zipper and he moved his hands to her body, one on her hip and the other on her breast. His lips pressed kisses down her throat until he got to her chest, there he spent a minute licking and grazing teeth until she eagerly pushed his trousers and boxers down, pushing into him, needing him closer. He kicked off his shoes and socks just as he got to his knees; his mouth went to worship her while his hands kept her knees apart. She gripped his hair, her breathing loud before she panted how much she needed him, how much she wanted him. Seth would give her anything she wanted, he was dying to do so, but he was also a selfish bastard; he slid his tongue out from inside of her, licking his lips to taste her sweet religion, before he bit down on her inner thigh. She yelped slightly, but did not protest when he moved up to her hip, scattering red marks that claimed her as his. 

Kate tugged on his wrists to urge him back up to her. Her arms wrapped around his waist, desperately kissing him like his tongue was her drug of choice and she was suffering withdrawals. She rolled them over, straddling his hips as she opened her eyes to look at him. She felt his desire for her, hot and impossibly hard against her, and it took all her self-control not to have him slip inside of her. His eyes held every beautiful, redeemable side of himself he did not believe existed. That was the thing about Seth, he always thought it was only her that needed to be admired on bent knees. He was wrong. Kate had her troubles with God, but she did not idolize false prophets, but for Seth she would worship and chant his name like a prayer close to her heart as she sought salvation. With her devoting hands and loving mouth, she made him feel just as wanted, just as sacred as he did to her. He murmured her name when her tongue traced the tip of his length before taking him all in. She could spend an eternity making him weak, making him shiver with just a hand and her mouth, but they both desperately needed more than that.

The moment he slid into her, both of them holding their breaths, hearts pounding against their chests, bliss in their bloodstream like the poison he had once depended on to sedate him, it was like coming home. It was like finding heaven on earth. Her body never felt more in tune than when it was with him and he found where he belonged tangled up with her. While raw desire burned them inside out, this was not like in Mexico; it was more than giving in to the secret lust they both harbored for months and only chose to show it in strokes of anger and resentment. This time as he moved in and out of her, it was slow, it was tender, and careful. He kept his eyes on her and her hands adoringly trailed every ridge of his skin, wanting just as selfishly to leave her fingerprints on him for the world to see. She kissed him softly, legs around his hips, pulling him in deeper to take them both to paradise. For a moment she thought his dark gaze glistened with an emotion she never had the courage to identify, but her mind wandered off when fireworks exploded behind her eyelids and a wave of utter pleasure drowned them both.

Neither said a word as their breathing reverberated in the small room, trapping them both in the fleeting world they built together. She laid on his chest, her fingers tracing the tattooed flames that licked up his arm, and he absentmindedly stroked her hair. She wanted to stay there forever. She wanted to forget the dangerous, cruel world on the other side of the door. She wanted to forget that this, she and him in harmony, fitting together like long lost puzzle pieces, was not reality because on the other side of that door they were with other people, even if they belonged to one another. When her tears fell and splashed on his skin, he grabbed her chin, looked her deep in the eye before taking one more kiss for the road. 

It was only when he slipped his clothes back on, quietly closing the door behind him, that Kate braved herself to accept that what lived between them was  _ love _ . Twisted, complicated, all-consuming, unexplainable true love.

When Santanico returned, cradling Rose in her arms as she slept, a sad smile was on her red lips when she caught Kate’s heartbreak forming puddles beneath her feet. “ _ Tal vez _ ,” she said to her in a hushed tone as she laid the girl on the empty bed, “the only beautiful thing he could’ve given you was Rose.”

“Sometimes you don’t get everything,” Kate murmured before seeking an embrace from the one person she never thought would be willing to share her misery. 

The morning after dressing Rose and brushing her hair, Kate looked down at the diamond ring resting on the nightstand. She thought remorse would fill her soul, that she would find herself on her knees before a crucifix, begging God for forgiveness, but there was only acceptance. She could not regret something beautiful and on the verge of shattering into dust. With a deep, courageous breath, she reached for the ring and slipped it on her finger before leading her daughter out of the room.

A loud argument filled the chapel when Kate and Rose entered. Her daughter hardly noticed the commotion (in the past few days, especially around culebras and Geckos, she was used to disagreements), instead she happily skipped over to Seth, who was shockingly drinking from a bottle of water rather than his trustee flask, and wrapped her arms around him. He was startled for a moment, but in the next second he swooped her up into his arms, holding on tight. Kate was not the only one smiling at the exchange (Richie’s was more of a smirk, especially when he turned to her, winking), but diminished it when Sonja caught her eye in the distance, something close to scorn on her face. 

“This is your fucking fault—”

“Marlo,” Benito sighed at the hunter. “Language. My kid is here.”

“And we’re in a church,” Nix supplied with a mocking sneer, pointing a finger to the altar behind them.

“What’s wrong?” Kate asked as she walked up to Benito. He placed a kiss on her forehead and an arm around her waist. Richie snorted loudly from his place beside Santanico.

“Vin Diesel over here is about to kill your brother, Katie,” Eddie informed as he shuffled playing cards over the table, throwing out five each to Lola and Hiru. Cigarettes, a bottle of Whiskey, and random dollar bills were being played for. “Something about a sire.”

Scott glared at Eddie before he met Kate’s eyes. There was a flash of regret on his expression before he attempted to push it away. “There’s a sorta bond that forms between you and the culebra that changed you. I have it with Carlos, just how Richie has it with Santanico—except mine doesn’t make me fucking crazy.”

Santanico smirked at the hunters that turned in their direction when Richie cocked his gun to point it at Scott. 

“Carlos can wipe my memory,” Scott continued, he and Kate knowing well enough Richie would not shoot (mostly because Rose was in the room). “Not anything long term, but he can definitely take shit out. I was telling them about a well I just remembered. It’s in the middle of nowhere, used to be an oil rig owned by Tanner’s family. That’s where Carlos was hiding out after he betrayed Malvado.”

Kate frowned at knowing some murderous vampire had the ability to toy with her little brother’s mind. “Okay. So we know where Carlos is. What’s the problem?”

“Problem is we don’t have any weapons, girlie,” Marlo hissed. 

“Who are you calling girlie?” Lola demanded from her seat. “Except for that  _ rayito de sol  _ over there, we are all women here. Show some respect,  _ pendejo _ .”

Marlo rolled his eyes, ignoring her. “We have what we and the base came with. There’s nothing to spare. If we rally up and go find this viper, we’d leave the base defenseless. And we aren’t leaving Rosita without protection, are we?”

“The base was relatively unoccupied before we got here,” Benito said to Kate. “The nomads moved out after Freddie said there was a human trafficking ring that led to Mexico. They took everything with them when they shut it down. I’m not as prepared as I thought I was,  _ amor _ . I’m sorry.”

Kate put her own arm around his waist, hugging him tightly when she looked up to give him a small smile. “It’s not your fault. None of this was planned,” she assured him wholeheartedly. “Besides, we aren’t entirely screwed here. We still have one option:  _ Riker _ .”

“No,” Nix said, her purple eyes narrowing at Kate as Freddie and Benito started protesting, too. “No way, Katie. I rather chop down every tree we have to carve our weapons and then stab myself in the eye repeatedly.”

Intrigued by the reaction, Richie raised a brow. “What is Riker?”

“It’s not a what—well, that’s debatable, actually,” Freddie grunted, crossing his arms. “Riker Savage is a rogue FBI agent that sells weapons to anyone that has the cash. That includes culebras and hunters alike.”

“Sounds like a good businessman,” Richie sneered. “With a fucking cliche supervillain name, of course.”

“Savage is the reason my brother is dead,” Nix shrieked at Richie, her hands shaking. “And he’s the reason why Hiru is missing a kidney. He stole our money and left us without any weapons last time we were in Nevada. Culebras killed nine of our hunters that night.”

“He also has a crush on Kate,” Lola said as she dealt a card from the stack. “And by crush, I mean he almost roofied her during a buy and tried to—”

“Lola, enough,” Benito growled, his anger showing through again as his hand tightened on Kate. 

“ _ ¡Oye! _ ” she returned angrily. “I was all up for chopping his dick off, but you’re the one that let him go.”

“He’s an FBI agent,” Kate reminded with a grimace at the memory. “No one can touch him without bringing down the entire bureau on them. I’m willing to put that aside—”

“Of course you fucking are,” Richie scoffed, a dangerous fury in his eyes that Kate ignored.

“—to get the weapons. Riker’s main operating center is in Texas, I could call him and have a haul ready within a couple of hours.  _ Then _ we plan an attack on Carlos.”

All that time in the background, keeping Rose busy when he told her to tell him all about the dream she had about the castle in the sun, Seth still kept an ear out for the conversation. He had swallowed down his own share of fury when the hunters alluded to what this fucking Riker Savage had tried to do to his girl, but he chose not to keep silent anymore. He handed Rose over to Sonja to say, “You’ll need to be the one to collect the shipment.” When Kate’s eyes met his the memory of the night before resurfaced; while Seth would happily allow it to become all he ever thought of, there were more pressing matters than Kate’s naked body beneath his. “He’ll want you to go alone, too.”

“I know,” she said with a hint of ire. “But right now it’s all we got. We need to start eliminating those who want Ro—who want the light. We take down the smaller demon before going after the devil.”

Santanico stood, chin raised high. “I’m with you, Kate.”

“Me too,” said Scott.

“You know you ain’t keeping the Gecko brothers out of this ride, Katie-Cakes,” Richie grinned, but there was murder in his eyes that gleamed identically in Seth’s. They did not care about FBI agents; they have been running from the government for years, what was another body to the list?

Benito squeezed her side, calling her attention. “I’m not going to let you go without me, either. Not since last time was my fault.”

It took less than twenty minutes on the phone with the shady weapons dealer for Kate to announce to the base that a haul would be ready by the evening. Kate decided she would spend the rest of daylight playing with Rose out in the gardens, giving the rest time to prepare as they collected all their weapons and figured out which ones could be left behind and which they absolutely needed to take with them. Although her daughter was becoming accustomed to seeing such things, it still did not sit right with Kate. She wanted to preserve Rose’s innocence, let her continue believing the world was a fairytale where everything was possible as long as she believed. Instead of that making her look down at her adorable little girl with complete affection, it made Kate bitter; her father and mother had both done the same to her and Scott. They built church and God to be their world. There, everything was sacred, good mannered, kind, compassionate, and shielded in shades of pastel. It made them weak. The real world—a stripper bar on the other side of the border crawling with sin and reality—forced Kate and Scott to shed their former skin. They weren’t the same once they crossed into the real world. She didn’t want that for Rose. She didn’t want to cripple her, but she also did not want to take away the magical way children saw the world around them.

Seth had the same idea, too. 

When the sun showed signs of retirement outside the mission’s walls, Kate and Rose walked back into the chapel. He was the only one there. He stood before the altar, watching the crucifix with the same scrutinizing gaze Kate gave it, too. She knew he could not be praying, but there was something so desperate, so vulnerable, about his expression, she believed they walked in on him baring his soul to something. 

He turned from the altar when Rose called his name. 

“Uncle Scott says God protects you,” she told him, blue eyes looking up at him like it was a knowledge only she had known. 

“Heard he saves people, yeah,” Seth returned with a faint chuckle. He squatted down to her height, taking something out from his pocket and closing his fist around it. “I got you something. It’s not new, but I think it belongs to you now.”

Rose closed her eyes when he asked her to. After she counted to three, she opened them and saw him dangling a gold necklace in front of her. She reached a tiny finger to touch the chain. “It’s pretty.”

“It belonged to your mom,” Seth told her as he gently moved Rose’s brown hair to one shoulder. “And before that it belonged to her mom.”

“Wow,” Rose gasped when the dainty, golden cross flattened on her chest after he securely tied it around her neck. “I love it, Seth. Thank you.”

Seth kissed Rose’s cheek, making her giggle, before he stood to his full height again. He finally dared himself to face Kate; he knew there would be tears in her eyes. After he had kicked her out of their motel room, after he trashed the place in rage fueled by his broken heart and the heroin in his bloodstream, he collected the few things he had and stuffed them into his bag. On the way out of the motel he caught the shine of the necklace hanging on a loose nail on the windowpane. Kate used to put it there before every job ( _ ‘I’m tired of scrubbing blood off of it, Gecko.’ _ ). It was the last thing he would steal from her. 

He put it in his pocket and drove far away. 

For six years it was his tradition to touch the cross in his pocket before he dove into the shitstorm he called life.

“She doesn’t have to believe in God,” Seth said to Kate, “but she can believe there are people like you in this screwed up world that make it worth living.”

Kate did not have the time to find the words she wanted to say, something like  _ thank you _ , something like  _ she believes in you, too _ , or like  _ I love you _ , before the chapel was infiltrated by the others. She turned away from him when Sonja walked up, putting her arms around his neck and he placed his around her waist. 

“Mama,” Rose spoke quietly, “are you and daddy leaving?”

“We’ll be back before you know it, Rosita,” Benito picked her up, kissing her cheek in the same place Seth previously had. “Meanwhile Freddie will be looking after you.”

“Grandpa Eddie, too?”

“Just won Pulp Fiction from Lola, sunshine. We’ll give that a watch while your mom is gone,” Eddie said with playful smirk and a wink directed at Kate. 

“If you get back early, Seth, can you read me another bedtime story?” Rose asked as Benito handed her over to Eddie.

Seth affectionately tousled her hair, restraining himself from punching Benito across the face. “You bet, sweetheart.” 

When Kate called Riker Savage asking for weapons, she had made it clear she would under no circumstance be arriving alone. Not entirely a bastard (so he said), Riker allowed her a plus one as long as he knew the person. As a result, Benito had to be unarmed; he did not require weapons to kill a man or culebra, so he calmly removed his guns and tossed them into the trunk of their car. She placed a hand on his shoulder, trying to silently reassure him that her incident with Riker had not been his fault, but he did not immediately meet her eyes. When he did, he pressed a kiss on her mouth and she let him chase away the taste of Seth. He opened the passenger door for Kate as the others got into the black, undetected cars to follow after them. 

She was silent for almost an hour, gaze lost on the passing fields outside her window. The dying sun left an orange haze on the overgrown grass. Everything looked like it was in flames. For a fraction of time Kate caught herself smiling—she really had learned to find chaos absolutely breathtaking. Then her old companion, the silver moon, shot out of the forming navy clouds in its waxing shape, darkening the pastures like untrusting shadows.

When she was younger she thought she had a type. She usually found herself crushing on the boys who attended church every Sunday with their parents, dressed in their best, hair slicked back, and who never opened an eye during their silent prayers. These boys were usually sweet, well-mannered, barely discovering the wonders of life according to their age groups. Then she met men with sins and everything she thought she wanted changed. Benito showed up in her life, handsome, strong, and the quiet type, and Kate thought it was enough. He was a combination of who she was and who she had become. Life had taken everything from him, too; thrusting vampires in his path to replace what he had lost. He hardly said much, but not a day passed he did not show her how much he adored her. He put everything he needed to say in ways Kate needed to hear it. And even though she liked to pretend otherwise, three years of intimate contact made him well aware of the things she could never will herself to say. 

“I know the life you lived before Freddie and Margie broke you, but you never gave up your will to keep going so you could give Rosita a great life,” he said to her, shattering the silence that was not uncommon between them. She could feel his eyes on her for a long moment before he turned back to the road. “It’s what made me fall for you. I thought we could be two damaged pieces together that time would eventually mend, but time passed, Kate, and you have never looked whole like when he’s in the same room with you.”

Kate turned away from the window, trying to unscramble the words she needed to say, but only managed to whisper his name.

“I love you, Kate. Do you love me?”

“Yes.”

“Not as a person, but as  _ your _ person?”

Her hands shook.

“The choice is yours,” he said as he pulled the car to a stop. There was a large Jeep waiting for them in the middle of an empty parking structure.  _ Riker _ .

Benito took the radio transmitter out from inside the glove compartment. “He’s here. Stay hidden,” he commanded before unbuckling his seatbelt. He did not spare a glance at Kate, but motioned her to follow his move.

Riker Savage was the cliche of FBI agents one would see in an action movie: he was tall, broad, rippled with muscles, and with an arrogant, I-am-untouchable persona. He was a bona fide asshole. Still, even if everything about him was scum and disieving, he dealt good merchandise. He picked up his weapons from cartels and crime lords all around the world—once they landed in the bureau’s evidence room, that is. He asked for top dollar because there were no traces on his haul; Kate had once needed that sort of service for Freddie after he was almost caught by another lieutenant for having unregistered weapons. Riker made her uneasy every time she picked up their order, but she could handle disgusting, flirtatious smirks and a lingering hand on her shoulder to insure Freddie would not land himself in any legal situations. Until he wanted more.

“Little surprised you two called me,” Riker said after he got out of his car, followed by another burly man serving as his guard. “On account that my  _ compadre _ over here promised to kill me next time he saw me.”

“The threat still stands,” Benito warned with narrowed eyes.

Riker grinned. “Frisk him,” he told his henchman, pointing a finger at Benito as he moved to Kate. “This one I got.”

Kate gritted her teeth, but still managed to assure Benito everything was fine. He couldn’t lose his calm. She could also sense eyes at a distance, cold and digging into her back. She could hear the Geckos’ vows of murder whistling along with the night wind as Riker placed hands on her shoulders.

He was an unapologetic bastard. He was well aware of what he had attempted to do with Kate last time she encountered him, yet he still had the  _ balls _ to run his hands over her body like he was caressing a lover. He kept his eyes on her, too, completely enjoying every second of it.

Bile pooled in Kate’s mouth.

“Sure got me thinking what kinda trouble you find yourselves in if you're willing to do business with me,” Riker said as he stepped back from Kate, still eyeing her like she was a trophy he wanted to mount on his wall. “Thought if it's real bad you might need a hand.”

_ Unless it's to chop it off _ ... Kate could hear both Geckos in her head already, with their snark and arrogance she learned long ago was not entirely wrong when they dealt with scum like Riker. 

“We’ve got it, thank you,” she said with a forced, polite smile. “And we've got your money.”

Riker looked at the bag in Kate’s hand as she tossed it and it landed at his feet. He grinned up at her. “Then I've got your haul.” 

He nodded his head at the henchman, ordering him to fetch the merchandise. He opened the backseat of the Jeep, pulling out a crate he easily lifted and placed before Kate and Benito.

“You know, just after I left California last year,” Riker raised his hand, halting them from moving for the weapons, “I thought about investing what I've got in the bank. It’s decent money, federal money, ya know? But it's just never enough with these goddamn budget cuts. So I tailed some buyers, asked around to see if anyone needed a sniper, weapons, something I could offer. Nothing really came up. There are a lot of killers out there nowadays, some doing it for free or for some measly hundreds. Then I met a guy who was into some really hard things. My conscience kinda bothered me just contemplating it. But shit, I've got two old folks that depend on me and a slutty ex-wife who won't get up off her ass so long as I keep paying alimony. I see that ring on Kate’s finger, Ben. One word:  _ prenup _ . Anyhow, I was in a bind. I figured, if not me, some other sucker will do it, mind as well be the one who catches some bad guys on the side, right? Even things out a little. So I called him, and I said, ‘You got yourself a deal,  _ compadre _ . You tell your boss I'll do anything if I keep seeing fifty grand in my account every two months.’ So, you'll never guess what Narciso wanted.”

Kate was launched back by Benito when Riker morphed into a culebra. 

Her head banged against the pavement and she was down for what felt like an entire minute. Her ears were ringing, black fraying the sides of her vision, before she rolled to her side and pulled out the crossbow hidden beneath the car. When she got back on to her feet, Benito was fighting Riker and his guard, both men culebras. Kate shot at the guard, catching him right in the back of the head; she ran up, building momentum, to jump on his back, with a punch to the back of the arrow, she forced it to come out the other end. The culebra propelled to his knees as he disintegrated. She turned her weapon to Riker and Benito, trying to find a good shot.

“ _ Kate _ ,” Scott’s voice came from behind her, disgruntled. She turned to see him, Santanico, and the Geckos brought in by other bulked culebras. There were wooden stakes pressed into their necks. 

There was a hiss of pain that made Kate look back; Riker had overpowered Benito by taking a bite out of his chest, forcing him to his knees. 

She was surrounded. 

At best, as she assessed the situation in the two following seconds, Kate could kill two culebras, three if she could send an arrow through one and into another, but that would mean gambling the lives of the others. It was something she could never do. With a rattling breath, she lowered her crossbow. 

“That’s a good girl, Katie,” Riker cooed, sharp claws retracted into Benito’s skin. “Bad choice coming to Texas. Malvado owns everything here. The moment your picture was handed out, man, I knew I had to be the one to get you. Boss will be paying big. I thought I might get one quick taste before handin’ you over—”

“Don’t you even fucking think about it,” Seth warned. “You touch her and I’ll fucking kill you.”

Riker rose a brow when he clocked in on Seth. “Who the fuck are you?”

“He’s no one,” Kate returned without emotion. “Now what, Riker? You think I’m going to go quietly?”

“Shit, darling. Gimme more credit. I know you too well. Trained by Gonzalez, running with hunters—you’re a fighter. Narciso said I’d have to be persuasive. He also said the Jackie Chan one was your brother. So here’s a riddle for you, Kate,” the culebra restraining Scott shoved him forward, digging the stake into his neck a little harder when he tried to fight back. Scott was then pushed down to his knees beside Benito. “Who does a pure soul choose to save: the brother that abandoned her for a life of murder, or the fiance who’s done nothing but love her? Here’s the kicker, you’re still coming with me, but one of ‘em has to die.”

Kate felt the air in her lungs become solid, suffocating her. Fear had paralyzed her, but she could not allow weakness to seep through. Culebras smelled it in the atmosphere; they manipulated every future move on how you reacted to a threat. She would not let Riker Savage or Malvado win. 

She raised the crossbow again, flipping it to press it against her chest. “How about I leave Malvado without a light?”

“No!” Scott yelled. 

“Don’t, Kate,” hissed Richie. 

“Put that shit down, Fuller,” Seth growled.

Kate backed away when Riker exposed his fangs, snarling; he leaned forward, readying himself to snatch her up before she did something he could not fix. 

“Malvado isn’t worth it,” Santanico struggled against the culebra caging her against his large body. “Don’t be stupid.”

“If I kill myself,” Kate said calmly, fingering the trigger of her weapon, “then there’s nothing to protect. You can send him to hell for me. I’ll be waiting.”

She knew it would end like this; there had not been another alternative when the prophecy threatened the life of her child. Kate would throw herself in the crossfire before anyone got near Rose. If she had to lay it down for her little brother and a man who had done nothing but devote his time to her for the past three years, then she would do so without a doubt, too. Her daughter was not alone now. Rose had Seth, and Kate knew how far he would be willing to go to protect her from anyone that threatened her well-being. And he would have an entire army of hunters and culebras at his disposal to help him with the fight. 

“Be whole again,  _ amor _ ,” Benito’s voice entered her eardrums, pulling her away from her final, fated thoughts. His fingers slid up his leg, inching closer to his pocket. Kate knew what was in there. They had gone through this emergency action in case they were left without alternatives. “And tell Rose I might not be her father, but I loved her like I was.”

“Ben, don’t—!”

She was not fast enough. Benito pulled out a thing remote from inside his pocket, pressing the red button that ignited an explosion that hurled them all back in different directions. The ringing in her ears deafened her, bruising the walls of her skull, but she still propelled herself forward on her hands and knees, desperately trying to crawl to Benito. She screamed, crying out for him as he burned in the distance. Unknown arms wrapped around her, holding her down to prevent her from diving into the fire.

Kate thought the world had stopped turning on its axis, but the apocalypse had begun when the surviving radio transmitter inside the car filled the flames with, “It’s an ambush! Come back! The base is under attack!”


	13. God Don't Live Here Anymore

They ran against the force of disaster, struggling with every foot crushing against the ground as the whole fucking world paralyzed itself. Seth was not sure how he was functioning; all he knew was that he was following Kate from the second she sprung up from the floor, racing to the unharmed vehicles to jump into the driver’s seat. She flew down the open highway like the fire they left behind was chasing them. When they arrived to the base, the metal gate that secured the interior was open, the bodies of the guards meant to be protecting it were left littered across the gardens. He could smell the blood on the other side of the second gate before they crossed it. Panic fueled his system; not by the red river or the mutilated bodies of the hunters on the chapel floor, but at the sight of forgotten toys. 

Scott knelt beside a dead Nix, closing her unseeing purple eyes as Marlo, alive but looking like shit, clung on to Cisco, pressing against the giant hole on the side of his throat like he had not already bled out. Kate remained at the entrance, emerald eyes lost in all the blood, while Santanico appeared unaltered by the scene. 

“Shit. Shit. Shit,” Richie growled as he ran down to the altar. Sonja was there with Lola, both kneeling before Uncle Eddie. It was only when his brother shoved them both out of the way that Seth saw the shard of metal penetrating his uncle’s chest. 

“I was too slow,” Eddie heaved, his exhausted eyes glancing once at Richie to end up on Seth as he dragged his feet one at a time in their direction. The floor beneath him felt like a thin sheet of ice on the verge of shattering. “I’m sorry, Seth. They...They took your little girl.”

A cry resounded throughout the chapel. It was Kate. She had fallen to her knees, her entire body shaking. Santanico knelt beside her, not knowing what to do other than wrap her arms around her with an intent of keeping Kate from breaking into a million pieces. 

Seth couldn’t fucking will himself to look at the agony that ravaged her. 

Uncle Eddie shed tears of guilt at the sound of Kate sobbing at a short distance. 

“Seth,” Richie ground out at his brother, but kept his gaze firmly on their uncle, dread fraying the edges of his blue eyes. “I have to bite him. He’ll die if I don’t.”

“You ain’t gonna change me,” Eddie weakly admonished. 

“I ain’t gonna let you fucking die, either!”

“He’s not going to die,” Lola said as she limped closer to Eddie again. Under the light of the altar Seth got a good look at her damage; she was covered in blood, the thick, red color obscuring the tattoos on her dark skin along with the grime of murdered culebras. She was surrounded by the bodies of her fellow hunters, but instead of grief there was only a ferociousness that kept her head held high. “We have to sedate him before moving him to another room using this,” she took out a dart from inside the pocket of her torn jeans.

Sonja knitted her brows as she wiped the blood on her hands across her blouse. “What the hell is that?”

“Potent sedatives. We carry them in case we need to render a few culebras immobile, but it’ll do for this, too.”

Richie stood, exposing his fangs to the hunter. “Who the hell made you a fucking expert on curing the injured?”

“Kate did,” Lola said severely, unafraid of him. “Do you want to keep having this conversation,  _ pendejo _ , or do you want to help me save your uncle’s life? Because I am still a hunter, and as much as I like the old man, I  _ will  _ put a stake through his heart the second you decide to change him.”

Richie snarled, but still ripped the dart out of her hands. As he bent over him, Eddie said, “If I don’t make it, Seth, you boys promise me you’ll find Rose, you kill those sons of bitches, and you remain a family.”

Seth did not bother to form words of consolation as the sedative took immediate effect. Richie picked Eddie up, hurrying after Lola as she crossed the backdoor of the chapel. Sonja walked up to him, pressing a kiss to the side of his neck before leaving him there. 

He turned back to the discarded toys at the corner of the altar. Tears burned in his eyes. His little girl had been huddled here just a few hours ago, probably putting her dolls and action figures through some crazy, imaginative escapades that only she could create. He should have been beside her, hearing every plot twist, every solution, and every backstory just as he did back in the warehouse. When he would find himself sharing those moments with her, Seth could not help himself from thinking about the future. It was hazy at fucking best, but the only thing that was crystal clear was that he would be there for her. Loving people always fucking broke him because he broke them first, but loving Rose was healing. Loving Rose allowed Seth to believe there was hope on the other side of all of this fucking mess...

He was not sure how long he stood there, frozen along with time, looking down at Rose’s toys, but the sound of rough voices brought him back from the bottom of the black sea.

“We can’t do anything tonight,  _ entiendan _ ,” Santanico growled at the hunters glaring her down. Scott passed them, carrying the body of a hunter to place it beside the others. There were three other surviving, nameless hunters scrubbing the blood from the sacred ground. “They’re probably reaching Jacknife Jed’s as we speak, doubling on security detail. It’s messy right now.”

“Does it look like we give a fuck about that,  _ Diosa _ ? They killed our people! They took Freddie along with Rose, too!” Marlo shouted at her. “Fuck waiting. We are going now.”

Seth stomped down from the corner of the altar. “That’s my daughter they have, you son of a bitch,” he snarled, fury and murder coming to life inside of him. Although Rose being at the mercy of culebras brought out the cold, vicious side of him, Seth could also feel a surge of fear spark up his spine. He was a fucking criminal, he knew how messy shit got after a heist. Jacknife Jed’s was a crowded shithole on the surface, and beneath it a ring of illegal activity occurred; if they were adding Rose and Gonzalez to the mix of the hostages they considered merchandise, there was no telling what unskilled, rookie would do if they were suddenly invaded. Seth would turn the whole fucking world upside down to find his little girl, but he would not do so if it jeopardised her. “No one—not me or you, you John Cena looking motherfucker—is going to put her life at risk, you fucking hear me? We’re gonna do this right. If you don’t fucking agree, I’ll gladly add you to the list of dead hunters. Got it?”

“ _ Que dios me perdone, _ ” Lola huffed with frustration as she elbowed Marlo back when he started to reach for the blade strapped to his waist. “We’re with you, Gecko. For tonight we regroup.” She turned to her fellow hunter, a severe glint in her dark eyes. “We won’t be of any use like this, Marlo. Truth is we got knocked down. We take tonight to bury our dead, but tomorrow...Tomorrow we give these  _ pinche culebras  _ hell.”

For being a large, unstable motherfucker, Marlo took orders from everyone like a loyal soldier. He would gladly slice Seth’s throat and murder every culebra that entered the base with him, but he was not an immediate threat to anyone. It was why Seth did not feel entirely compelled to shoot him in the back of the head as he stalked off to assist the other hunters trying to erase the attack their base experienced. 

“Where’s Richie?”

“With Eddie,” Santanico responded. Seth gave her a nod, deciding to retreat from the chapel, too, but she blocked his path. Her own dislike for him reflected in her sharp eyes. “Go see Kate.”

He grunted a, “Fuck off,” to her just before Lola forbade him access to leave, too. She made her gun apparent by pulling it out and pointing it at his chest. “What? You best friends with the fucking Snake Queen, too? Why the hell is everyone on this scaly stripper’s side these days?”

Although Lola appeared offended by his absurd accusation, she still said, “Kate has raised your daughter on her own all these years,  _ cabron _ . I don’t care why you weren’t around then, but now you are here. So be there for her when Rose is missing.”

“She doesn’t need me,” he hissed at them. 

“You’re right,” Lola conceded aggressively, with so much candor Seth believed it. “Who she needs the most to comfort her right now, to give her hope, is Benito, but he’s dead. She lost her fiance and daughter on the same night. How about you screw on your balls and deal with that?”

“You are all she has, Seth,” Santanico said to him in a far more careful tone than he ever heard her take with him. “No one understands her pain at this moment like you can.”

Seth established long ago that he was a no good, goddamn bastard, but now he was coming to find that he was also a no good, goddamn  _ coward _ . He managed to go about his life without giving a single fuck about who he hurt, who he screwed over, or what he took from whomever. Then Kate came along and everything his arrogant splendor fucked up suddenly weighed on him. He had known everything he touched crumbled, but he still stormed through his days shameless and unstoppable. He never meant for her to be on the receiving end. He did not want to be the reason she kept falling down the hopeless, isolated abyss he had unknowingly dug the moment he met her. He wanted her to have everything she fucking deserved, yet every time he was in her life she only experienced loss. Years back it was her family and her innocence, now it was her life in California, a fiance he fucking hated to admit deserved her, and their missing daughter. How could Seth console her if  _ he  _ was the reason everything went to shit?

Maybe Lola was right. Maybe he was not the man Kate needed—maybe he never really had been no matter how many times he tried to convince himself otherwise—but he knew he could not keep abandoning her when she most needed him. He had done so before when he developed an addiction that temporarily erased Richie’s disappearance from his mind, but he no longer had that excuse, nor did he want to find another. So he made way to her room, opening the door to find her lying on Rose’s bed. She clung on to the cow onesie their daughter wore to sleep. Just one night ago he had worshipped Kate’s body in the same room, hearing her sweet sighs and arousing moans, seeing her face twist in delicious pleasure, but there was no trace of that. Now there was only an emptiness that took over her beautiful features. 

He carefully took the onesie from her to place it over the nightstand. Without a word, he climbed in beside her, wrapping an arm around her waist before pressing her close to his chest. It reminded him of some terrible nights in Mexico when she sought comfort from him when reality was too much for her to endure on her own. Even then he had never known how to cope with her sadness, but she never asked him to heal her. All she wanted then was to feel his warm embrace and hear the rhythm of his steady heart to remind her that they were alive. She always found hope in that. He knew she was not looking to reignite that flame of faith again, but Seth was not ready for her to forsake it. He needed her to believe that this screwed up world could be turned right side up again. He needed her to believe in  _ him _ .

A few hours into a sleepless sunrise Kate heard the door of the room open. Scott appeared at the foot of the bed to inform Seth that Eddie had woken up from the raw, amateur operation Lola had performed on him. With a whisper of a kiss on her shoulder, Seth exited the room. Kate wanted Scott to follow him out, but instead he sat on the side Seth had left unoccupied. 

He let out a deep, rattling exhale. “I didn’t betray you,” he said. “Marlo’s telling the others I gave out the hideout, but I swear I didn’t, Kate. You have to believe me.”

Scott was waiting for reassurance that she trusted him, but Kate did not respond. She only looked out the open window, watching the sunlight weave around the leaves of the dying trees. She thought of last fall when she and the Gonzalezes took their daughters camping to Yosemite; Rose had been fascinated by the way the forest glittered when the orange light touched it ( _ ‘It reminds me of the castle on the sun, Mama. Everything is beautiful there, just like this.’ _ ). Rose danced under the sunshine, her eyes the color of the sky above them, and Kate knew then her baby girl was something special. Her aspiration had been to give Rose the life her own parents had wished for her with her share of magic, but this life of the supernatural had been predisposed to tarnish her innocence just as it had done to Kate’s. 

The vibration of her cell phone went off, cutting through the silence. Scott sighed as he went for the phone, accepting the call with a scroll upward.

“Did you like our surprise, _cariño_?” Kate recognized the sadistic voice on the other end of the line. Even if she felt dead inside, memories of his wet whispers in her ear and his disgusting hands trailing down her body still resurfaced. It was impossible to forget Carlos Madrigal when every piece of her despised him. “Personally, I don't like the theatrics. I prefer an efficient simplicity. I would've just gone in there, taken your _hijita_ , and made a threat like any respectable man would, _pero_ _el_ _jefe_ likes his show.”

“I should’ve killed you when I had the chance,” Scott hissed into the receiver after hitting the speaker icon on the device. 

“ _ M’hijo _ , you never had the chance,” Carlos laughed. “When I told you to cross your ocean, kid, I didn’t mean back home. I told you before, your past makes you weak. As long as you continue to hold—”

“Shut your fucking mouth,” Scott interrupted. “This is my sister you’re messing with. It’s my niece you kidnapped, asshole.”

“You’re adopted,” Carlos sighed dismissively. “Listen, Kate, before me, very tired and very pissed, is one Ranger Federico Gonzalez—Lieutenant Gonzalez,  _ disculpa _ . See, when we took the peacekeeper, he didn’t come with the tablet he stole from Malvado before escaping. I need you to find it for me.”

“We aren’t giving you shit.”

“Scott,” Carlos snarled now, “I am talking to your sister, shut the fuck up. Now, where was I? Ah, yes. The tablet. I can’t promise you and your little girl will survive this, but I can promise you dying beside her. That’s all a  _ madre  _ can hope for, isn’t it? To see their child one last time? So that’s what I offer in exchange for the tablet.”

“Kate!” Freddie’s voice erupted out of the speaker. He sounded like he was struggling against something, pain in his tone. “Don’t give him shit! This isn’t over!”

It was over. Kate knew that. She felt it deep in her bones. They had taken everything from her so many times over, all she wanted was for it to end.  _ She  _ wanted to end it. She wanted her daughter back. It was hypocritical of her, of course; she had spent all this time telling everyone involved that they needed to think things clearly, plan carefully, act cautiously, but all of that had turned to ash. She did not want those monsters around Rose for another second. If they were out for blood, then Kate would make it storm.

The sound of bone cracking came out of the speaker. Freddie roared, gasping for air.

“You know where Jacknife Jed’s is,” Carlos said smoothly. “We’ll be waiting.”

“ _ Kate _ —!” The rest of Freddie’s shout was cut when Carlos ended the call.

Scott crushed the phone until it was bent metal and shattered glass. “If Carlos is back to working for Malvado, we can’t do anything he says, Kate.”

She stood from the bed, walking over to the lone rifle among the collection of weapons Lola had left in her room. The hunter thought it would give Kate comfort, make her feel protected, but all the small huddle of arms did was stir an impending, catastrophic tornado inside of her chest. 

Scott put a hand on her shoulder just as she took the rifle. “Kate,” he muttered apprehensively, “if Freddie hid the tablet it was for a reason. Only bad shit can happen if they get their hands on it. You can’t listen to Carlos.”

Through a stoic gaze, Kate said, “What other choice do I have?”

He could hardly imagine the pain tormenting his sister. He had known of loss, but he was not entirely selfish or ignorant to think it measured against having her child be ripped away from her by the same monsters that ruined their lives. Scott had never been intentionally great at comforting Kate, either. When they were younger, the times she was upset or sad, all he had to do was  _ be  _ there, show up in the moments she most needed him to offer a shoulder to lean on as he heard all her troubles. His presence was not enough now. Kate needed something more, something divine. 

A part of Scott knew he lost his faith in God alongside his father. 

He was given up by his birth mother a few days after he was born; he was an anonymous bundle wrapped in newspaper and an old blanket outside the doorstep of an orphanage. His first years of childhood were in an overcrowded place, eating scraps and polishing floors by day, looking at the moon and dreaming about a place of his own by night. One year there were unexpected news of his adoption; a couple from America wanted to give him a family. He had no other choice but to get on a plane, seeing his country as a blur for the first time before he had to leave it. It was like arriving to a special sort of hell when he was taken in by the Fullers; Scott did not know their language, he could not communicate or understand them, and their daughter frowned at him every chance she got. He felt lonelier than in the orphanage. But Jennifer Fuller, his new mother, would not give up on him: she dedicated time to teach him English, tucked him in at night before teaching him to pray at the end of his bed, kissed his forehead before turning on his night light and closing the door of his bedroom, she made him a hot, hearty breakfast every morning, bought him toys he did not have to share with twenty other kids, promptly picked him up after school or (when he got older) after lacrosse practice, affectionately fussed over his long hair, warned him with mirth about girlfriends trying to take her ‘baby boy’, and encouraged him to live an impeccable life. She did all of that even while she was sick—but God took her, anyway. Scott was left with a broken family that would only continue to wither. 

When they entered the Titty Twister he was shocked to learn vampires were real, but not of hell on earth. He knew all too well of the cruelty that plagued the world, so he embraced it. He accepted his path down disaster. Still, a part of him that had been saved by the Fullers prodded him time and time again with his mother’s voice. She told him to believe. Scott did not know if he could; he did not know if he could kneel before a cross as a culebra, put his palms together, and ask God for anything. How could there be absolution for someone who’s very instinct was to kill his fellow brother and sister? How could God listen to someone who was a demon? Scott struggled with allowing Him back in, but at the moment there was no one else he could turn to. He had not had a home for six years, just places to hide from the sun, but Kate came back and he thought there was a chance. Him, his sister, and his niece. A family. A home. And God had always been the answer back in Bethel. Scott was a monster, but they weren’t. God had to listen to his sister’s prayers.

So he led her to the chapel he spent all night scrubbing blood from. He knew they weren’t Catholic, but God was God no matter in what form. He only hoped it was enough. 

“Remember when we lost Mom?” Scott whispered to her as he helped her to sit on the first pew, setting aside the rifle she brought with them. “You took me to church after I punched a hole through the wall. You said it was okay for me to be angry because God understood. You also said when I most felt hopeless that’s when I needed to pray and God would always listen. Katie-Cakes,” he grabbed her left hand gently, squeezing just like their father always did, before pushing both her palms together, “close your eyes. Speak to God.”

Kate could not close her eyes. Every time she did she saw Benito burning, Nix with her heart missing, Cisco without his eyes and half of his throat, Hiru without his head, Eddie with a shard of metal sticking out his chest, and her little girl missing. Every time she closed her eyes she could see Rose at the mercy of those monsters, scared and cold, crying out for her.

She pulled her hands away from Scott; she stood from the pew, making a beeline straight for the newly rebuilt altar. She had picked up the discarded rifle, now raising it high to smash it against the gold center table, splintering it with her built-up momentum. She hit it again and again. A scream ripped out past her throat; if she had not felt it burn on the way up, if she had not felt it spark the never ending tears in her eyes, she would have never believed the sound came from her. It was mangled and lethal. It was  _ deranged _ . She crushed the end of the rifle again, this time against the lit candles offering worship to countless saints, hitting them all repeatedly until the glass shattered at her feet. What fragments remained she reached for, shards of glass and lit wicks penetrated the skin of her palms as she pushed it all down. Another scream, deeper, from the pit of her abdomen erupted. She spun to face the crucifix protruding from the throne. This was not the image of the God she had been taught to fear and love, but He was a representation of all of Him. God was a fraud. He did not exist. If He did, her life would not be what it was now. She would still have her mama, her daddy, and she and Scott—both human—would be returning to Bethel for the holidays, to attend church as a respectable, wholesome family. But God took all of that away from her. He took her mama, her daddy, allowed her brother to became a bloodsucking parasite, and abandoned her in Mexico. She fought with tooth and nail, bled over and over again, for the silver lining in all of the darkness, for her precious daughter, and God took her, too. 

God was not real. God was a fantasy. She no longer believed in religious, magic bullshit.

Kate let out another agonizing scream as she picked up the rifle; before she could pulverize the crucifix, arms wrapped around her middle to wrench her back. She was pressed hard against a chest, a pounding heart bruising into her spine, the smell of disaster and heartbreak filling her senses. Seth clung on to her, burying his face on the nape of her neck, whispering inaudibly against her skin as Richie yanked the weapon out of her grip. Santanico kept her distance, dark, tormented gaze scanning the chaos Kate had unleashed; she then turned to face her, tears glazing over, and Kate finally understood her consuming desire for revenge. She recognized and identified with the asphyxiating loss Santanico carried every day for a thousand years. Malvado had taken everything she loved, ripped away every beautiful, bright thing, and left her to insanity and desperation. He left Santanico to drown in pain, yearning for a death that would never come.

With cut and bleeding hands, Kate reached down to Seth’s, pulling them away from her.

“Where are you going?” he asked as she moved to take back the rifle from Richie.

“Jacknife Jed’s,” she told him, low and crushed. Her face was void of every warm emotion that made her Kate. “I’m going to kill Malvado.”

Richie grabbed her wrist, rough and cautious at the same time. He did not have to tell her not to go, his blue eyes said it all. He was that boy again, terrified of his mind but so certain of the future when they sat beside the pool, smoking cigarettes and pretending like they weren’t both bleeding out. He was full of his bravado every second of every day, willing to rip heads off with those sharp fangs and brutal hands, but when it came to Kate, what was left of his humanity poked through, searching for her light to bring out the best of him. Aside from Seth and Eddie, she was the only person he ever connected with; the only one he was ever capable of showing apprehension, care, and affection for. If she left to ignite a war, he knew she would not return.

“You can’t take him out on your own, Kate,” Seth said past gritted teeth, sharing the same fear as his brother. His pain, however, was at a tenfold. Seth had the same agonizing hole in his chest where his heart should be. They had taken his daughter, too. 

But Kate had carried Rose inside of her. Kate had hosted her for nine months, loving her since she was a tiny seed and when she sprouted into the beautiful toddler she was now. She held Rose in her arms for the first time, covered in blood, flashing blue eyes at her that connected Kate to the man who left her, but forgave the moment Rose gave her first cry. She was everything. Rose was the entire universe caught in the shell of the most extraordinary human being. No one could ever feel her absence as Kate did.

“What do I have left without her, Seth?” 

“Listen to me, princess,” he hissed, marching up to her, grabbing a hold of her shoulders with rough hands. His tone was furious, but his eyes glittered with tears he has been fighting to keep unspilled. “We’re gonna get Rose back. I fucking promise you that we are, Kate. But I will not—fucking hear me—I will  _ not  _ lose you, too.”

Kate wanted to tell him there was nothing left of her for him to have. Not without their daughter. 

“We talked to Lola and Marlo,” Scott finally made a sound as he hung back, terrified of the sight of his sister forsaking her faith. “They’re still willing to fight with us.”

“And they’ve called more hunters,” Santanico said. “They arrive this afternoon. Kate, we will get your  _ niñita  _ back. Malvado won't get away with this.”

Kate never thought she could ever feel a form of affection for Santanico, but she did in that fragment of time. She had kept her word from days back; she promised she would not put Rose’s life at risk for her revenge, and now she was signing herself up for her rescue. It was such a lovely sentiment from a broken soul, but Kate could only admire it and not take it. Not this, not Richie’s silent plead, or Seth’s need for her to be his light in the darkest day. 

“We are a family,” Kate murmured, looking at Seth first, “a broken, messed up, sad excuse of a family, but we got love for each other.” Her eyes ended on her brother, a request only he knew of flashed across her miserable expression. “JianJun,  _ please _ .”

Scott’s eyes widened at a name from so long ago and felt like his heart could start beating again. It was how his mother used to call him, gentle yet pleading as she wiped tears from his cheeks every day his first week at the Fuller home. 

With a shaky breath, Scott gave his sister a nod. In an instant his fangs were out and he hurled himself at Richie, biting into his throat to distract him before snapping his neck to the side. Kate picked up the rifle and shot Santanico on the head. She went down immediately, gasping as her body convulsed in harsh ripples from the powerful sedative compacted in a thin, steel dart.

“Kate, fucking listen to me!” Seth yelled as Scott went to cage him in. She could see his anger darken his gaze, but there was more of a profound fear that allowed her to see into his soul. It begged her not to do this. It begged her to stay with him.

“I did love Ben,” she said to him, needing more than ever to say this just in case she never got the chance, “but I was never in love with him, not really. He knew my heart was always somewhere else. Still, he sacrificed himself because he knew there was one thing I could never bring myself to do, Seth.  _ Choose _ . How could I? But now I have another choice, me or Rose, and I will always choose her.”

“Don’t fucking do this, Kate. Don’t go—” She closed her eyes when she pulled the trigger. He groaned when the dart hit him.

Kate only opened her eyes when Scott laid Seth out on the floor. She knelt before him, softly tracing her thumb across his cheek. She wanted to say the words engraved in her soul, but all she could offer was a kiss against his forehead before she stood up.

“There’s one problem,” Scott said as he followed her, both quickly making their way out of the chapel before the sedatives wore off on Santanico and Richie first. “We don’t know where Freddie hid the tablet.”

“I know where it is,” she told him. “I was there when he hid it. He said I was the only one he could trust with its location.”

This was how Kate would betray Freddie. It was not by cuffing him to his truck so she could run off with the enemy in attempts to save her brother; she was stealing the one weapon prophesized to kill the Nine Lords of the Night or bring upon the end of days. For her daughter, Kate would deceive Freddie, Seth, Richie... _ everyone _ . There was no limit to Kate’s love for Rose. Now Malvado and all of his culebras were about to find out that hell hath no fury like a mother scorned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I first started writing this the plan was to kill Eddie just like in the series. Then I made Rose call him "Grandpa Eddie" and I just couldn't do it.


	14. Heads Will Roll

They arrived at Jacknife Jed’s while the sun still hung high on the sky, a few hours from taking its final bow before the moon took over the navy spectacle. Scott didn’t want to let Kate walk in there alone. She tried to tell him he would be of no use to her if he turned to ash the second he stepped out of the tinted car; for the moment, she just needed him to show her every secret tunnel and nook on the freehand blueprint he and Freddie had drawn for the hunters. He frowned as he told her instead that the docking area was her best chance at an escape. There, a small number of working culebras oversaw that Malvado’s merchandise (women and drugs) was carefully unloaded from the trucks and stocked in the back warehouse; behind the incoming and outgoing semi-trucks there was an open road that led straight to the borderline of New Mexico. If she took the highway she could reach the hunter base located in Roswell—as long as she managed to kill every culebra manning the unloading area.

“That’s your job, then,” Kate told him nonchalantly, not meeting his eyes as she continued to memorize the layout. “Wait until sunset to strike. I should be there by then. If I’m not...Find Rose and take her to Seth.”

Scott wrapped his fingers harshly around her wrist. “Don’t go in there alone. You don’t know what these assholes are capable of.”

“I know exactly what they’re capable of,” she returned with a tug at her hand, now narrowing her eyes at him. “Which is why I can’t leave my daughter with them for another minute.”

Scott kept his sharp teeth clamped down for a few more seconds before he willed himself to say, “I’m scared of being alone again, Kate. I know I never said I was sorry for staying in that temple, but I....I didn’t know at the time how much I needed my sister.”

“Listen to me,” Kate’s voice was now gentle, careful, as she put her free hand over his, squeezing tightly. “Don’t apologize for something I was to blame for, too. I should’ve fought harder for you, just like Daddy made me promise I would, and do everything I could to save you, but I can’t change that now. You’re my brother—you’ve always been, and you always will. I love you, JianJun.”

Kate always thought Scott was her knight in shiny armor, but it was she who was his hero. She had always been fearless in his eyes; a warrior princess hidden beneath a preacher’s daughter wrapping. While all Scott did was find her when she was lost, she fought for their way out of the darkness, never once letting go of his hand. He changed along with everything else when their mother died, he gave in to hate and forgot his sister was a constant source of love that never wavered. He had shamefully given up on his family back in that temple, but now that it returned to him after years of missing home, he could not lose her. 

He wasn’t the only one who saw her as the hero to every story ever told. Rose also knew of the action-packed quest of Kate blazing through Jacknife Jed’s to rescue her and bring her back into the safety of daylight. She was waiting for Kate, so Scott had to let her go.

Trapped in the car until the sun died, he watched his sister make way to the bar in the distance. 

Kate could not bring herself to tell Scott she was walking in with the intention of never coming back out. He would have never let her go if he even suspected it. He would have burned chasing her down if it guaranteed her well-being. But her life did not matter. So she entered through the front door, gun out and a woolen  satchel over her shoulder, without any intention of hiding from the prying, culebra eyes that were always watching behind their masks of harmless humans. Yellow eyes flashed at her, fangs slowly exposing as she walked to the end of the room; she had immediately spotted Carlos at a back booth. She slithered a knife from one of the tables, stuffing it into her pocket before stopping beside him.

He grinned up at her, malicious, cavalier, and a true bastard as he wiped his mouth with a cloth napkin Kate was sure he had especially delivered to suit his high-and-mighty persona (seeing as Jacknife Jed’s was definitely a classless, paper napkin bulk joint). Carlos snapped his fingers at someone in the distance. Kate did not count on having Tanner smile down at her, appearing vulgarly satisfied with himself as he took the gun out of her hand, shoved it into his back pocket, and proceeded to pat her down, taking his time on every curve before pulling the satchel off her shoulder. He opened it, exposing the old, yellowstone tablet hiding inside for Carlos to see. 

“Very good, Katie,” was the only thing Carlos said as he stood from his booth, smoothing down the wrinkles of his attire. He took the bag from Tanner, marching for a door only culebras had access to. Kate followed with Tanner hovering behind her, bumping into her every other step.

It was dark and grimy the further they descended into Malvado’s hidden fortress. It was a concrete city built for loyal culebras and their lord. She could hear agonizing screams bouncing off every corner, seemingly circling them the more they walked. Kate hoped with all of her might none of the echoes belonged to Freddie. 

She crossed golden blockades acting as doors. There were ancient, eccentric carvings on the tall posts, detailed, aztec patterns on the stone walls she recognized from books she researched in Mexico, and a force so unholy chilled the room. It was like being deep within the Titty Twister again. There was no temple attached to the back of Jacknife Jed’s, but the same evil infiltrated the air. 

“ _ Tal como lo prometí, _ ” Carlos said after he dropped the bag on an open chair. He pulled out the tablet and laid it on the desk, right beside Narciso’s severed head acting like a paperweight.

Kate had not noticed the man behind the large desk until that moment. He rose to his feet: He was tall, dark, with graying hair, fatally handsome facial features, and cutting brown eyes that claimed to see behind every hushed discretion. He maneuvered from behind the desk like a predator stalking its next victim; the hunger in his dark, twisted gaze revealed he wanted more than to sink his fangs into Kate’s neck when he took her in.

“Now you keep your end of the bargain,” Carlos continued. “I get everything.”

Malvado slowly turned from his brief enchantment on Kate to constrict his dark gaze on Carlos. “You were always too ambitious for your own good, Carlitos. Always wanting more than you can have. But that was the thing about  _ conquistadores _ , wasn't it? They sailed the sea to reach new lands that were already inhabited to claim as their own.”

“I didn’t want your land back then.”

“No. You wanted to take Santanico from me. You let her bite you thinking she would spend forever with you, but in time you discovered she would never really be yours. She was always belonged to me.”

Carlos scoffed. “Go ahead. Find and keep your  _ perra _ . All I want now is all of this.”

“And this one?” Malvado turned back to Kate, taking another slow, hunting step in her direction.

Kate could see Carlos’ desire to continue pushing his limits with Malvado as his arrogance expanded far enough for him to believe he could have power over one of the Nine. Before she could end up as that deciding card in his deck, a girl with short, black hair and clad in skin-tight leather burst into the room. 

“The peacekeeper is fucking gone,” she informed Carlos.

“Don’t look at me,  _ jefe _ ,” Tanner raised his hands guiltlessly as Carlos glared dangerously at him. “You told me to research the tablet, and that’s what I was doing. Maia was on  _ rinche  _ duty.”

The girl, Maia, pulled out her gun and pushed it to the side of Tanner’s head. “I’m not the fucking watch dog here, Sex Machine. That’d be you.”

Malvado smirked at the ruckus. “You promised the entire package, Carlitos. You want the throne? Bring me everything I need to go to El Rey, or you will never rule over  _ mi gente _ .”

Snarling, Carlos tore Kate away from Tanner to hurl her at Malvado. “Search the fucking cellars,” he commanded at Tanner as he and Maia stalked out of the room. 

Kate held her breath when Malvado reached a hand to her face, caressing her with rough fingertips. Deadly desire drowned in his eyes, but it was not entirely meant for her. He touched her while in a trance. Kate had often observed Seth lose himself in a memory of a forgotten world, she could identify it on Malvado, too. He was seeing Kisa in Kate: a pure, shiny vessel waiting to be destroyed by his darkness. That's what he did; Malvado stole the brightest soul he could find,just as every devil did. Santanico had been right when she said all evil men craved the light.

“You impress me,” he said with one more greedy touch before taking a step back. “For risking your life.”

“It’s not risking if I’m offering it,” Kate willed herself to say after swallowing the hate that pooled in her mouth. “My life for my daughter’s.”

He grinned darkly at her, taking a seat on the other open chair. “That is all you have for me?”

With gritted teeth she said, “I know without Santanico you can never reopen the Twister. You need a Blood Gatherer to offer souls to the Gods.”

“And you are willing to become that?” he asked, intrigued yet staring back condescendingly at her. “I have seen into your brother’s soul. I know all about your religious background.”

“We were children then. We don’t believe in God now.”

Malvado studied her for a silent minute before saying, “Yet you still glow like the moon. How can someone who has forsaken their faith still hold light in their soul?” 

“Magic bullshit,” she dismissed. “I can be the key to El Rey.”

“ _ Cachito _ ,” he stretched his hand out to her, “I have a jet destined for El Rey, but you are offering me a walk there.”

She took his hand; this time she was the one to close the distance between them by allowing him to bring her down to her knees. Every cell in her body electrocuted her with warning signals that she was in the presence of the devil, but she stomped her fighting reflexes from activating. There would be no more running. She made way to Jacknife Jed’s for the sole purpose of giving Malvado her freedom in exchange for Rose’s life. She would vow never to escape; she would vow to lure the lost ones, the troubled ones, and the desperate ones to his temple of sacrifice, and be his property for as long as he so wished it. 

Kate would vow to let him turn her.

Malvado could see her offering everything she had without the words leaving her lips. It sparked his hunger again. He tenderly moved her long, brown hair behind her left shoulder, exposing her pale, inviting neck to him. Tears stung behind her closed eyelids when he slowly licked her skin. Kate wanted to die, but she clung on to the shambles of her life so he could have her, so he could take every piece so her daughter could survive.

His fangs barely pinched her skin when she was yanked back.

Kate’s eyes flew open to find Richie securing her body against his cold chest. His yellow eyes narrowed at Malvado. “You ain’t giving her your venom when I’ve been waiting a lot longer.”

She did not think her heart had the power to still sprout wings, but they fluttered open, wanting to take off when Seth burst into the office, pushing Tanner down with a heavy kick to his ribs and a bash of his gun against his head. 

“Fucking ex-addict, Fuller. Sedatives don’t last too fucking long in my system,” Seth growled at her, but his brown eyes glittered with relief at seeing her alive. 

Malvado clapped, his smirk back on after retracting his fangs. “I see you got my call, Richard. Did you find the peacekeeper?”

Kate glanced up at Richie, confusion on her face he did not want to meet. “What the hell do you want?” 

“For you to take the throne,” Malvado offered simply.

Tanner got up to his knees, glaring. “Wait a fucking minute. You had Carlos and me running around all of Texas looking for that little brat so you can give a Gecko what’s ours?”

Seth smashed his foot against Tanner’s spine to pin him on the ground again.

“None of this was ever going to be for Carlos. I just needed him distracted until Richard found his way here.”

Seth turned his gun from Tanner to Malvado. “Sorry, Dracula. My brother ain’t taking shit from you unless it’s your fucking head to mount on our fireplace.”

Malvado gave him an unimpressed look before giving his attention back to Richie. “I had brothers that got in my way of greatness, too. I ripped out their hearts and fed them to the lions. You don’t need Seth. You can take my empire and become a king just as it was prophesied.”

Richie raised a brow. “Another prophecy? They’re getting a bit fucking old now, don’t you think?”

“So many are made, but so many are unfulfilled because of meddlesome fools. Oculto and our sister tried to stop you from taking over for me by trying to kill the light before she was born.” Malvado faced Kate now. “You remember your pregnancy complications, don’t you? It was them and their magic bullshit. All along your  _ nena  _ was meant to die so Richard and our culebras can rise.”

Richie’s arms around Kate tightened with extra force she could feel herself bruising. Seth stepped away from Tanner to approach them just as she turned to the side to meet Richie’s blue eyes; both she and Seth only found that unreadable expression he was fond of sporting when he was toying with the idea of betrayal. 

Seth had once believed the Gecko Brothers gig was enough for both of them. They had taken the world by storm as a unit all of their fucking miserable lives that there had never been any inclination of something new. When he made the mistake of marrying Vanessa and she interfered with that dynamic, the course of fucking destiny fixed itself by serving Seth with divorce papers. Then the Twister happened. Now Richie wanted more. His heart’s desire was to be on top of a food chain Seth could not climb up to. 

While it was not fucking hard to see Richie taking him out of the picture in order to be a king, Seth had to believe his fucking greed would never come before his own niece’s life.

“How did you know it was Rose?” Richie asked flatly. “Both Carlos and Tanner told you it was Kate. You saw her light yourself when you read it in their souls.”

Malvado stood from his chair as he called out, “ _ Traeme la niña. _ ”

Through the same doors Seth and Richie had entered from, Kate’s body filled with utter outrage when Sonja appeared with Rose in her arms. Her little girl picked her head up from Sonja’s shoulder when they stopped beside Malvado. Rose’s cheeks were a  scarlet that matched her puffy eyes, tears falling. She let out a strangled cry when she clocked in on Kate and the Geckos.

“Mommy,” Rose wailed, stretching her hand out.

Malvado grabbed her skinny wrist to pull it down.

Kate snarled, baring teeth like she had become another monster. She lunged, pulling out the knife she had stuffed into her pocket, but Richie squeezed her harder to keep her from attacking.

“What do you say, Richard?” Malvado pressed. “You can have everything. You can even have Kate for the next millennia with Seth out of the way if you want her. All I require is Santanico, then I will extinguish the light.”

“Don’t you fucking touch my daughter!” Seth growled.

“ _ Que defensa paterna _ ,” Malvado let out a cruel laugh. “I told Sonja you would not renounce your paternity for thirty million dollars, but she believed otherwise. Shall we tempt him, anyway?” 

Sonja slightly loosened her restraining embrace on Rose. “Let’s take the money, Seth. There’s nothing left for you here. We can start a new life in Maldives just like we planned before this prophecy bullshit.”

“Just like that?” Richie cut in when his brother tightened his grip around his gun. Kate was struggling against him again, but he just pressed her tighter to his chest. “I become the boss and you go to El Rey?

Malvado picked up the stone tablet off his desk with his right hand as the left went to circle around Rose’s forearm. “We just need to find the peacekeeper and you and I will have everything we want.”

He pulled Rose away from Sonja and she let out a terrified screech. Seth’s eyes filled with desperation at not being able to find a clear shot on Malvado without hurting his little girl in the process.

“One thing my brother and me never fucking liked,” Richie halted Malvado from moving, his arms slowly sliding from around Kate, “was being told who we were. Do I fucking hate Seth most of the time? Of course. Does he regret not leaving me when we were kids just like our mother did? Sure. At the end of the day, though, we’re family. And that’s my niece you’re fucking threatening.”

“Rose,” Kate yelled, “cover!”

Hell broke loose: Rose bit Malvado’s arm, dropping on the ground, hands covering her head and pulling her knees up close to her chest, when Richie launched Kate forward, giving her enough impact on Malvado to thrust her knife into the side of his neck. He hissed, morphing into his culebra side just as Kate landed over Rose, shielding her with her own body. Richie morphed, too, but before he could collide with Malvado, Santanico charged into the room as a blur of leather and blades.

Tanner scrambled out of the office, Sonja following after him, but Seth blocked her path. “You made a deal with Malvado.”

“For you,” she shoved him back a step with scorn in her brown eyes. “For  _ us _ !”

“You gave him the location of the hunter base. You almost got Eddie killed. You gave him my daughter!”

“You’re not father material, Seth. You’ll never give up this life for—”

Seth pulled back the trigger, sending a bullet into her chest without blinking. Hate etched across his face. “You’re wrong.”

Sonja fell to her knees, gasping, one hand pushing against her torn chest as the other tried to reach out for Seth. He took a step to the side, looking up to meet Kate’s eyes. He moved for her and Rose without sparing one final look at the woman he once cared for.

Kate pushed a crying Rose in Seth’s direction; he scooped her up while Kate turned back, diving in for the tablet. Seth hurried her, but her eyes were locked on Santanico and Richie fighting Malvado. She wanted to join in to defeat that sadistic bastard, but when Richie sliced Malvado’s back exactly in the moment Santanico used her blade to cut across his chest, shoving her hand inside the flesh, Kate ran after Seth and their daughter.

A roar submerging the fortress signaled Santanico’s fulfilled revenge and Kisa’s long awaited freedom. 

Both Seth and Kate knew they were not going to make it out of Jacknife Jed’s without having to ward off a few culebras loyal to Malvado, but they had not counted on the full-scale warzone the open floor would be when they made it to the surface. A brigade of culebras had unleashed chaos on the unsuspecting humans who had stopped off at Jed’s for their nightly beer, cheap food, and live music; the monsters were exposed, baring fangs and claws, draining the life out of unlucky individuals as others tried to run out into the night. Orchestrating the anarchy was Carlos, laughing from on the stage with the culebra band.

“Even assholes have friends,” Seth hissed, pressing Rose tighter against his chest.

A round of bullets went off, sending a big culebra flying backwards; Freddie appeared through the doors, cowboy hat, rifle and all. Behind him was Lola, Marlo, and Scott, all at the ready.

Seth moved to the exit with Kate tracing his steps, but she was slammed against the ground covered in blood and glass. Fanged out, Tanner gripped her throat, grinning like the disgusting, oversexed creep he was when he straddled her. She gasped, clawing at his face, but he squeezed harder. She thought the black spotting her vision was going to win, but Lola bashed the end of her crossbow against his head. Kate slithered a leg from underneath him, bringing the toe of her boot against his ribs to break free. 

She got to her hands and knees, looking up to find Seth trying to fight off a culebra with Rose still in his arms. She crawled for a pile of ash a few feet away, taking the stake; she got to her feet, charging forward to impale the culebra in the eye. It grabbed onto her shoulder blades, breaking skin, but she still managed to pull the stake out of his socket and into his chest. With a twist to the wooden weapon, the culebra turned to ash.

Scott let out a resounding hiss when Maia flagged him down with a crowbar smashing against his left knee and a bite to his neck. He tried to swing at her but failed, giving her access to bash the crowbar on his head. He fell on his back, straining to push Maia off—

“Let him go.” Santanico stood over them, her eyes yellow and blood stains on her face.

Maia smirked wide, laughing just as cynically as Carlos had. “I knew I’d be the one to kill the Queen.”

Santanico returned the sneer, motioning her to attack. Maia took the first swing just as Richie came stumbling in from the doors that led to Malvado’s lair.

“Kate—!”

Carlos hurled Kate backward with a yank of her hair. As she fell the tablet flew out of her hands to land among clutter and Freddie taking on three culebras on his own. Carlos grasped Rose’s arm, intent on stealing her from Seth, but he spun them, aiming his head to collide against Carlos’ to force him back a few steps. He pulled out his gun from his back pocket to send three bullets at a culebra in their way; with Rose still in his embrace, he ran, leaping over the bar counter, protecting her face and head, when they landed behind it.

“Stay here, baby girl,” he instructed. “I need to help your mom.”

With giant tears in her eyes, Rose tugged at his collar before he could get up. “I don’t want to lose another daddy, or my mama. Don’t let the bad guys win.”

Seth could not find the words to question what she had just said, instead he pressed a fleeting kiss upon her forehead and jumped from behind the counter when he heard Kate scream.

She was hunched over with her palms pressed to her abdomen, Richie hurling himself at Carlos. Fear paralyzed him when she extended a hand out, skin wet with blood. He rushed to her, pulling open her jacket to find a thick chunk of glass piercing her skin. 

“Look at me,” Seth told her as she panted. Kate did as he asked, finding his dark, beautiful gaze, not breaking contact when his fingers wrapped around the edge of the glass. She knew what came next; they had done this several, unfortunate times in Mexico when she could not escape an injury caused by pulling a job that took a turn for the worst or fighting culebras. Her teeth bit into her bottom lip to muffle her howl. 

She slumped against his shoulder, her body shaking from her punctured skin, but she swallowed the cries when Richie fell back against a table, giving Carlos the upper hand. Marlo charged in their direction, but a culebra with chef attire flung a knife at him to not allow any distractions from Carlos killing Richie.

With fire in their eyes, Seth and Kate ran forward to overpower Carlos. Seth punched him twice with his fist, once with the muzzle of his gun before lodging bullets into his chest. Carlos did not fall back; he stumbled, fangs out, hissing, and launched Seth back. Kate went in next, getting a good hit across his face, but he squeezed her wounded side, making her scream as he pulled the skin. 

“I won’t kill you,  _ preciosa _ ,” Carlos pinned her against him so he could snarl in her ear, licking up the blood stains running along the skin that was exposed to him. “Maia will be my queen,  _ la diosa _ will haunt the labyrinth, and you will be the Blood Gatherer for my empire.” He laughed harshly, his fangs poking her skin. 

Santanico drove the sharp end of the crowbar into Maia’s heart when the latter made the mistake of taking a wider stance. She twisted the metal before wrenching upward with fury, making it rip out past Maia’s shoulder. A short distance away, Freddie finished killing another culebra before throwing a lighter at Santanico’s direction, both grinning like old comrades as she set Maia on fire.

Carlos roared at the flames consuming his lover and Kate caught Rose crawling from behind the bar counter, making way to the discarded tablet. 

She wasn’t the only one; Seth and Tanner locked eyes on Rose, too. Yet, Seth’s path was impeded by two culebras, and Tanner bit into Lola’s shoulder, pulling out a chunk of her flesh, forcing her down and out of his way so he could stalk for the tablet, greed in his eyes. Before he could reach for it, Rose touched the ancient stone and it lit up. She raised it over her head; the markings on the tablet emitted a blinding light that surged out in streams. It enveloped Tanner, tying him up before the thin, ethereal ropes sliced through his skin and bones, turning him to ash.

Rose did not shriek at the sight, but rather allowed the magic of the tablet to change her. Rubies took place over the sapphire blue of her eyes, her skin illuminated from within, radiating out of her like a protective bubble, and a wave of certainty made her stand tall, unafraid. It gave her the courage to twist the tablet in the direction of the culebras flanking Seth down. They burned just as Tanner had, writhing and roaring in pain.

With Carlos’ distraction, Kate got a clean shot to stake him in the chest. He hissed stumbling back, releasing her, just as Richie came charging from behind, stabbing him with another broken chunk of wood. 

“Hey, sweetheart,” Seth knelt before Rose, careful to manage his uncertainty to not startle her. Kate rushed over to them, heart pounding. “I need you to give me the tablet, okay?”

“They don’t want the snakes,” Rose said in a voice that was not hers, that was an octave deeper, calmer, and somewhat righteous. “They’re corrupted.” 

Kate glanced at Seth with her share of panic before she looked back at their daughter. “Who doesn’t want them?”

“The people who live in the castle on the sun. The ones who follow me. They don’t want bad souls. Those go to the darkness below.” Rose held the tablet tighter, making it burn brighter, vibrating to release another stream of power.

Seth put his hands on the tablet, lowering it an inch.

“Let go, Daddy,” Rose instructed, red eyes on him. “It’s not your time to go yet. They don’t want to hurt you.”

“I don’t care,” he returned past gritted teeth. The veins in his arms usually masked by his tan skin and black tattoos became dominant, a shade of deep navy that ran up to his face, scattering and invading. “They’re hurting you and I’m not gonna let them.”

Kate placed her hands over Seth’s, helping him pull the stone another inch down.

“She says she’s proud of you, Mama,” Rose smiled as she looked at Kate now. “She says you’re better than her, but I don’t think she’s bad. She loves you and Uncle Scott just as much as you love me. She was just so tired.”

Kate did not get a chance to ask Rose who she was seeing when her daughter reached a small palm to where she was bleeding, pressing against it. The light turning her an iridescent white warmed over Kate’s skin; she felt the wound mesh together, healing.

“They say to be happy, Mama. All of us,” Rose whispered before she released the tablet and her hold on Kate. The oddities the tablet caused vanished; her skin was Seth’s color again and the red was gone from her eyes. Rose gasped, touching her forehead as if it pained her before she fell unconscious. Kate caught her before she hit the floor.

“What the fuck was that?” Seth looked up at Richie, demanding immediate answers as the abnormal coloring beneath his skin faded, too.

“The castle on the sun,” Santanico cut in with a murmur, a frown creasing between her sharp, dark brows. “El Rey. She saw the other side.”

Richie scoffed. “Before we start talking angels and demons here, let’s not overlook the fact that  _ Rose  _ is the weapon.”

“Richard,” both Kate and Seth started to warn.

“She is. Rose has your purity, Kate, and our blood. That’s her power. The tablet is just a way to harness it. Shit,” he chuckled, “We don’t need her to defeat the Nine seeing as she can do it on her own because we made her the ultimate being.”

Carlos stood, yanking out the large splinter of wood Richie had stabbed him with. He let out a chuckle past gritted teeth. “ _ Malditos _ Geckos,” he snarled. “What the fuck is so special about you  _ pendejos _ ? I found you in a six-by-nine,” he narrowed his eyes at Seth before casting them at Richie, “and I found you in the woods. I put the god-fearing, dull Fullers in your path. You were nothing until I made you. I made all of you.”

Marlo broke another chair, picking up the torn leg and pointing it at Carlos. “Let’s kill the fucking viper already.”

“Wood isn’t working,” Lola aggressively reminded as she limped closer, clutching on to her bleeding shoulder. “We should burn him.”

“He will heal too fast. We have to find another way,” Santanico said.

“How about the ancient way?” Freddie offered as he retrieved the blades she used to kill Malvado with.

“I prefer the Kansas City way.” Seth handed Lola the tablet as he neared Carlos, hate exchanged between the two. He picked up the knife over the pile of ashes the culebra cook now was just as Richie moved to force Carlos back on his knees, stretching out his right arm. Seth swung the knife, cutting it right off. Carlos growled. “Back in the day, guys got outta line they would chop them up, send them to the four corners of the county so nobody could find them—”

He gave Richie the knife. With genuine satisfaction, he cut off Carlos’ other arm.

“Or piece together the truth,” finished Seth.

“The bone-scattering.  _ Chokbaak _ , remember?” Santanico smirked at Carlos.

Despite his groans of pain, he still raised his head, laughing through the bleeding and torn limbs. “You can go ahead and chop me up however you want, but when you're done, do me a favor and kiss my brown ass.”

Richie raised the knife, but Seth went out to hold his wrist. “I think someone else will like the honor.”

Scott appeared from behind them, deep loathing in every line of his face as he unsheathed the sword slung over his back. “I crossed my ocean, asshole. And guess what? It led me back to my sister.”

Kate closed her eyes when her brother swung the sword and Carlos’ head rolled.


	15. Road to Heaven

Jacknife Jed’s had been the battleground for dethroning the king of the culebras. It was where the monsters came out of the shadows, baring fangs for human eyes, where hunters and culebras united for one common goal, where Carlos Madrigal found his end at the edge of a sword, and where a little girl lived up to the prophecy created because of her blood and light. Naturally, the state of the place was a downright mess; ash and corpses had piled, the wooden panels of the floor were stained red with blood that had yet to dry, almost every stool, booth, chair, table, and glass had been broken, along with a few windows, and bags containing body parts rested on the stage cluttered with unusable instruments.

In unison, the survivors took in a breath of relief.

After an hour of silence, those who did not heal within a few hours were examined by the only certified nurse in the vicinity after she had placed her daughter in the arms of her exhausted Uncle Scott. The culebras among the remaining humans started to dispose of the dead as the Gecko Brothers fetched Carlos’ bagged limbs to scatter and bury them deep within the desert. 

The sun poured in past a cracked window, bringing in much needed luminosity and warmth after a cold, dark night. Freddie sat beside it, relishing in its beauty and undeniable evidence that, despite being captured twice by the enemy, tortured and fighting, he had made it to see another sun. Kate found him smiling to himself as he twirled the stone prophecy in his hands with a pondering stare. They sat together in absolute silence for a long while, easy and stifling at the same time. She rested her head against his shoulder, closing her eyes for a sliver of time. It reminded them of their countless troubled nights when the two could never find any sleep and met on the front porch, looking out at the moon to try and understand why they had made it out of that temple irrevocably marred, but completely alive. 

“I called Margie,” Freddie finally said. “She’ll be boarding a plane from Utah to California in a few hours.”

“Benito died,” Kate told him with a knot in her throat. “I have to call Gloria in Sonora to tell her. I have to tell Rose, too.”

He put an arm around her shoulder, bringing upon the quiet again. Freddie had learned to comfort because of Margaret, but in time he had come to find that Kate did not want reassuring words that let her know one day all these open wounds would close. She did not believe time could erase those inflictions, and frankly neither did he; they both had visible and invisible scars to remind them of every horrible nightmare. Still, Kate wanted to heal herself. She wanted to find a balance between her hurt and her joy; all she required was to have someone she trusted and loved beside her to remind her she still possessed the ability to feel. 

The Geckos walked in through the front doors (Richie with Seth’s jacket over his head to keep the sunlight from disintegrating him). They gave Freddie a nod to signal that the deed had been completed without any complications. 

At last, they were freed of Carlitos. 

Freddie raised the tablet when Santanico marched up to them, pulling on leather gloves. “Think we should destroy it?”

“It’s the only thing that can kill the Nine Lords,” she reminded him with a pointed look, crossing her arms.

“It’s also an invitation for some scaly motherfuckers to come after Rose,” Seth told her sharply. “You saw what this shit does to her.”

“We don’t know if it’s an entirely terrible thing. Rose is light. She used that to get rid of the culebras, remember? We might need it in the future.”

Seth frowned at Santanico, looking on the verge of shoving her beneath the beam of sunlight, when Kate said, “Freddie should keep it. He is the peacekeeper, after all. And I trust him with Rose’s life.”

Freddie’s arm around Kate tightened slightly. He knew she meant every word. He was also aware that Santanico and Seth both presented valid points; the tablet could channel whatever divine power lived inside of Rose, but to what extent? And to what cost for her? He still had several notepads filled with ancient symbols he had yet to research; he knew the tablet tied in with those markings, and he would proceed to thoroughly investigate anything that could lead to the demise of the Nine Lords of the Night.  _ Or _ he could just break the tablet. At the end of the day, in that exact second, too, it was just a heap of old stone. If he destroyed it there would be no pending temptation for treacherous culebras. Besides, when it came to killing those pieces of shit, Freddie found satisfaction in doing it with his own hands. 

Richie let out a malicious chuckle as he looked around Jacknife Jed’s. “I still got the throne.”

Everyone rolled their eyes at him, annoyed and upset at his satisfaction.

“What’d you say, Katie?” he added. “You can be the queen to all of this. One little bite and it's yours.”

“I hate you,” she replied just as Seth said, “Fuck off, Richard.”

He laughed again. “You love me.”

Kate huffed, pulling her head away from Freddie’s shoulder to cross her arms over her chest and scowl at him. “Doesn’t mean I’m going to allow culebras to make me into their new diosa.”

“You hear that, brother? She ain’t denying she loves me.”

“Then she has horrible fucking taste in men,” Seth scoffed.

“I’ll say, she slept with  _ you _ ,” Richie smirked.

Freddie stood from his place in the sun when Seth punched his brother and Kate still somehow blushed at the comment despite having had a child with the older Gecko. “It’s yours,” he said to Richie, “yours and Seth’s. If Malvado was telling the truth, the prophecy wanted a Gecko on the throne. Now they got a two-for.”

“Where the hell are you going?” Seth asked when Freddie put on his cowboy hat.

“I’ve got a wife and daughter. I’m going home.”

Kate stood before Freddie finished his sentence. “Scott,” she called for her brother who had been eating a pizza with Rose he had delivered to Jed’s. They both looked up at her, dirty and exhausted. “How does California sound?”

“Like I’m going to burn to death, but I can dig the LA nightlife,” he said with a smile as Rose got up from her chair.

“You’re leaving?” Seth’s brows furrowed as Rose walked over to them. 

The silence slithered its way around them again, this time uncomfortably so.

Eventually, Kate had to find the will to say, “We left a life back in California, Seth. There’s so much I have—”

“It’s okay,” he cut in, surprising everyone with how calm his tone was. There was an angry glint to his eyes, of course, but he couldn’t really fucking forget that Kate had six years of collected events, possessions, and memories away from him. As did Rose. She had kindergarten, friends, ballet classes, favorite parks and restaurants and ice cream shops, and the Gonzalezes waiting for her back in California. Even if it felt like a goddamn eternity, he had just shared two weeks of monsters, prophecies, blood, and one fucking surprise after another. Kate had once told him it wasn’t the easy things that made great parents, rather accepting the difficult things over the convenient choices. He did not want to see his daughter go, and he sure as hell could not fucking stand to see Kate leave again, but he had no control of what she wanted (even if he desperately fucking needed her to want him back).

For six years and forevermore, Kate’s heart contained Seth Gecko’s name carved in gold letters just beside their daughter’s. Years had come and gone since Mexico where they parted ways, but the first day he came back sufficed to bring out every emotion, good or bad, she felt for him like a tsunami tide. Life was hard, but it was easy to breathe when he was around. He was her drug of choice; the constant surge of blissful poison she would let into her bloodstream again and again. Nevertheless, with tears and blood she had built a life without him (even if it hurt). Benito had been a part of and contributed to that life, too; now he was gone. Although Kate never fell  _ in _ love with him, she did truly love him. He was kind, loyal, strong—everything she had needed at the time. She needed to mourn him, to honor him as the great man he had been, and to figure out what life would be now that he was gone.

“I’m going to leave, too,” Santanico said as she fished out a key from the pocket of her leather pants.

Richie frowned. “You don’t gotta go.”

“All my life I’ve been the property of men, Richard. That ends today,” she said as Scott brought over her sun-shielding, black motorcycle helmet. 

“Don’t go to Europe, Kisa,” Rose peered up at Santanico with wide, blue eyes. “They wanted me to tell you that. They said you’ll find what you’re looking for back home in Mexico.”

Santanico bent to Rose’s height, only adoration in her dark gaze now. “Who wants me to go south of the border,  _ nena _ ?”

“There’s a lot of them living in the castle,” she whispered sweetly, a hand touching the woman’s cheek, “but there’s one man there who really wants you to start in Mexico. He has your eyes, Kisa.  _ Tanok _ .”

For the first time since any of them encountered Santanico, they heard a sob escape her red lips. It was a mix of something nostalgic, broken-hearted, and joyful. It gave an insight to the humanity still caught inside her thousand year-old body. “ _ Dime, hermosa, _ what does Tanok...what does my father say?”

Rose wiped away Santanico’s tears. “That when your day comes, they’ll be waiting in the sun.”

She pulled the little girl into her arms, holding on with a shred of her might, pressing big kisses all over her beautiful face before setting her back down. With a huge inhale and a glitter to her skin, Santanico took the helmet from Scott, gifting those around her with a rare, genuine smile. 

“Goodbye, Kisa,” Kate said as she embraced the now free woman. “Be happy.”

“Don’t be a stranger,” Richie mumbled, clearly upset as Santanico pressed a fleeting kiss to the side of his cheek. 

Without another word, Santanico pulled on her helmet and went for the doors. Covered in head to toe in broad daylight was not exactly basking in the sun at the edge of paradise, but Kate really hoped that with Malvado gone, with the potential of a new life ahead of her, that she would find joy in something truly phenomenal in her journey.

Rose stepped closer to Seth, taking his hand and smiling big at him when he looked down at her. “Don't be sad, Daddy.”

Kate paled, eyes agape as she flashed them at everyone around her, accusing them of divulging a secret that was not theirs to tell. “Rose, baby, how did...?”

“My other daddy told me,” she said, her smile lessening as her blue eyes reflected her own grief. “Ben came to see when I was locked down there with that bad man, Mama. He talked to me.”

Tears fell down Kate’s cheeks. She did not fully understand what was happening to Rose, and a part of her did not want to. Rose had sometimes mentioned protective glowing figures outside her bedroom window some nights, but Kate regarded them as the stars just as she called the moon her faithful companion. Rose was imaginative, but now she realized there was more to it. More than Kate wanted to accept, even now. She did not forget the damage she had done to the chapel back in the base, how she had renounced God and her faith—if she let herself believe that her daughter could see angels, that she could see into the place beyond this mortal life, then Kate would have to get on her knees and seek absolution for her sins. She was just not ready for that yet. There was still resentment filling her chest. She needed time to assimilate to these events and readjust what she knew and what she believed.

Still, she found herself whispering, “What did Ben say?”

“He came to say  _ adiós _ , and that you, Mama, and my real daddy were coming to save me. He told me never to be afraid.”

“A dead guy beat you to the punch, brother,” Richie said with a snort.

Seth glared at him, silently promising he would be staking him once his daughter was not looking. He then bent at the knees, meeting those blue eyes that stirred blurry memories of his mother and her once tender, loving gaze she gave him when kissing him goodnight. “Listen, sweetheart,” he cleared his throat, “I know you loved Benito. He was there for you when I wasn't, and I...well, I'll always thank him for that, for protecting you and your mom when I couldn't. I just want you to know that I wish I could've been there from the start. Believe me, baby girl, that I'm real sorry because I wouldn't have missed it for the world. And if you're okay with it, then...then I want you to know I'll always be right here for you, no matter the place and time, because I love you, Rose. I love you so damn much.”

“I love you, too, Daddy.” She wrapped her slender arms around his neck. 

Kate heard her sniffle into his shoulder, making her wipe away at her own tears. She caught Seth’s gaze; she had to look away or she would not have the strength to leave. 

When Rose moved to hug Richie now, Kate held her breath when Seth was more courageous than she was. He intercepted her at a corner, placing a hand on the side of her face, his thumb tracing her bottom lip. She wanted to melt into it, into him, fusing together like stars after the nebula had collapsed, but she had to will herself to take a step back after saying, “Give me time, Seth.”

Kate left Jacknife Jed’s with a portion of her family while the other remained behind to ascend to their throne.

The first week back in California was nothing like the week following the events of the Twister. Kate and Freddie (Scott to an extent, too) had become accustomed to the chaos culebras unleashed to let them create new, irreversible wounds. For days they just slept away their exhaustion, uninterrupted by the nightmares that were no worse than the ones that haunted them before.

Kate had been apprehensive of what the side-effects two weeks of blood and monsters would cause on her daughter, but Rose handled the very real world of supernatural beings far better than Kate ever did. Not that it surprised her entirely; Rose was strong. Rose was protected from the cruelty that had once broken Kate to pieces. Her little girl remained pure and innocent, in love with the magical world around her because she believed in the light. 

One night, Scott and Kate drove to a church in their town. They parked in front of it, listening to the chorus of the congregation vibrate from inside, the doors open to invite any wandering soul to enter the house of God to hear the sacred word. They both recalled the thousand memories of sitting on the first pew with their mother, marveling at their father preaching about forgiveness, faith, strength, and kindness. Those days God was almighty and unquestionable; they believed in Him just as they believed Earth spun in its axis around the sun. Things were different now, they weren’t gullible children whose entire world was a religious fortress, but they did want to believe again.  _ Someday _ . One day they would enter a church to allow God back in so they, too, could believe in the light Rose praised. For now, she turned on the ignition and drove them to a beach to watch the waves ripple with the moon as a spotlight. 

Rose’s sixth birthday came and Seth called Scott’s phone as he did every day for two weeks to wish his daughter lovely sentiments and ( _ ‘Tell her the chemistry set comes with real elements!’ _ Richie demanded loudly from the other end of the line) to know if she liked the barricade of gifts that had arrived for her that morning from him, Richie, and Eddie (the package had even included a box wrapped in silver from Santanico with a postcard from Cancun). Rose’s blue eyes would glow like gems every time he called, announcing to anyone within earshot that her daddy ( _ ‘My  _ real _ daddy, Billie! _ ) sent his greetings before walking to her room to speak privately with him. Kate never pressed for details about any of their conversations; she simply appreciated that the two continued to build their bond even from different states. That was not to say Rose did not try to get her to talk to Seth before the call ended, but Kate declined every time despite wanting nothing more than to hear his voice. 

That same night she sat at the kitchen table with three plane tickets and a diamond ring before her. Three months back, Benito had planned a trip to the Bahamas to celebrate (as Kate would later find out) their engagement. Just three months back he had been alive. Now he wasn’t. That’s what kept Kate up most nights, knowing he had created a picture-perfect life for them amid culebra-hunting and their painful pasts that she never deserved. She should have been brave enough to accept that the heart in her chest had not been hers to give away for it had already been claimed by a criminal in a Mexican motel. She should have let Benito go to give him a chance at finding something real. Now he would never get to experience that with someone that could have loved him just as he deserved to be loved. 

“You can’t bring back the dead, Katie,” Margaret told her gently as she pulled the chair from across her to sit. “And you can’t keep living in regret for what can’t be changed. You deserve to be happy.”

A stray tear fell down Kate’s cheek. “Here,” she slid the plane tickets to her. “You three should go relax on a sunny island. Freddie deserves it.”

“Kate,” Margaret pushed aside the tickets, grabbing her hand firmly, “You sully Benito’s memory by thinking he would have wanted you to be unhappy instead of where your heart truly belongs.”

“I can’t,” Kate murmured, “not yet.”

Kate and Rose took a flight to Sonora, Mexico three days after she had asked her daughter if she ever saw Benito again ( _ ‘No, Mama,’  _ she told her sadly,  _ ‘Daddy Ben stayed in the sun. _ ’). There had been some remodeling done to the town Kate had lived in after the nest of culebras had attacked and retreated, but the feeling was still the same. It was like stepping into an alternate universe of pretenses and perfectly normal expectations that she did not get to have. The only one who truly knew of the grey shades among all the vibrant colors was Gloria, the woman who had extended a hand out to Kate when she had been abandoned on a lonely Mexican dirt road. With her Kate did not have to pretend not to be covered in scars because she carried just as many.

She told Gloria all about seeing Seth again. She told her about the anger, the resentment, the sadness, the heartbreak, the addictions, the adoration, the need she felt every time she looked into his dark eyes. Kate apologized to Gloria with tears streaming down her cheeks and with trembling hands, and the woman simply held her, running comforting fingers through her hair. 

“Did you love Ben?”

“Yes,” Kate breathed, “I loved him. He was my best friend.”

“Then that’s all that matters,  _ m’hija _ . Ben was not a fool. He knew what people were worth loving and dying for. Just remember him and tell Rosita what a great man he was.”

She tried to give Gloria the diamond ring Benito had gifted her on a bent knee, promising a beautiful life as husband and wife, but she would not take it. Gloria told Kate she needed to forgive herself for his death. Gloria had wanted her children to outlive her, just as any parent wanted, but she had known that their lives as vampire hunters would bring upon heroic deaths rather than deaths by old age ( _ ‘Honestamente, I don’t think my Ben would’ve preferred it any other way.’ _ ). It would take time, the woman also told her, but she wanted Kate to remember Benito as someone who only wanted the best for her, not as the unfinished tragedy he became. 

It took two months for the world to remind Kate that she could not outrun her destiny. There was one path meant for her all along, and it led straight back to Texas.

The moment of truth came to her at the clinic. She had been prepping a young woman for the doctor, taking her weight, blood pressure, pulse, temperature, asking about her allergies, when the next question stopped at the tip of her tongue—“When was your last menstrual cycle?” Kate had to step away from the patient, her entire body shaking as she asked another nurse to take over as she took an elevator ride to the pharmacy level beneath the building.

In the bathroom stall, a pink plus sign on a plastic stick reminded her of miracles.

“We knew this day would come,” Freddie smiled at her from his place on the front porch beside her. “Can’t outrun those damn Geckos no matter how much we try.”

“I think it’s more Texas we can’t keep out of,” Kate offered with a small laugh.

He snorted. “We all eventually go back home, Kate.”

“Will you?”

“Maybe. Margie likes it out here, but it’s never quite felt complete, you know?”

“Promise me you won’t disinherit us,” she told him. “I know that although you’ve helped them, you’ll never be able to forgive them for what they did to Earl. Peacekeeper or not.”

Freddie threw an arm around her shoulder, ruffling her hair like an older brother would. “I promise. But you’ve got to promise me something, too.”

“What?”

“If it’s a boy, name him after me.”

They both laughed wholeheartedly picturing the outrage that would cause.

On the drive there, suitcases in the trunk, Rose sleeping in the backseat, and the morning sun starting to poke through the pink sky, Scott asked from the passenger seat if Kate was afraid of what they would find when they returned. Packing up what they had in California made her mourn the story she had invested six years in, but when she had closed that book to reach for a new one, one she should have read from the start, she knew things were falling into place. She could not be afraid of what was already hers. That was the thing about Fate, in the end it took you where you needed to be. It took you home.

They parked on the curbside of Fast Eddie’s. During one of the many times Kate shared a sofa with Eddie back in Richie and Santanico’s lair, watching Seth interact with Rose, the man told her all about his TV repair shop that posed as the legal business front to all of the illegal sides. She knew it brought him decent clientele for the electronics aspect, but there were cars lined on the driveway. Thinking it odd, she exited the car as Scott helped Rose out of the back. They walked into the garage, Rose dinging the bell at the counter. 

Her heart stopped when Seth slid from beneath an old Mustang, covered in oil. 

“Daddy!” Rose cheered, launching herself at Seth before he had the chance to get to his feet. 

“Hey, sweetheart,” he breathed, kissing her cheeks and hugging her tightly despite his brown eyes giving evidence of his shock. “What are you doing here?”

“We came home,” his daughter proudly declared. “Where’s Grandpa Eddie? I can smell the coffee.”

Rose kicked her legs so Seth could put her back on the ground. “He’s inside with Richie—”

Rose raced through the backdoor, not able to contain her excitement before her father finished his sentence. 

“Tell me you bought all these cars with that thirty-mil, man, and not making a decent living,” Scott said with a smirk before following his niece inside.

Seth glared at him as he wiped his hands on an old rag. “Does his fucking shitty teenage attitude ever go away? I know he’s frozen at sixteen, but come the fuck on.”

“Why aren’t you at Jed’s?” she asked.

He shrugged, remaining silent for a few long, tensed seconds.  Ultimately, he sighed, throwing the oil-stained rag on the counter. “Rose doesn’t deserve a criminal for a dad.”

“Is this about what Sonja said?”

“I’ve never known anything other than stealing, Kate, but nothing had ever made me want to quit that life, either. It was easy, just me and Richie loading our fucking pockets, but then you gave me Rose. Sonja was fucking wrong. I  _ can _ leave that life behind.”

Kate had been terrified of what influence Seth would be on their daughter when he crashed their lives in a fashion nothing short of Gecko splendor, but she now believed in his words without a doubt. She knew from the moment he laid eyes on Rose with unbreakable love that he would put the stars at her feet not by stealing them from the sky, but by taking the time to pick them one by one. Still, Kate had shared seventh months in Mexico with Seth where she learned to steal, shoot, kill, and fight. It was not the lawless pull that made his eyes glitter when he was conducting a heist—it was the thrill. It was the adrenaline pumping through his veins that lit him up. Before leaving California, she not once had thought about asking him to abandon his spot on the throne of culebras beside Richie. She knew who Seth was and accepted it. 

“The day will come when Richie will need his partner to fight beside him,” she said.

“Maybe,” he returned, “but he has a culebra army at his disposal, too.”

“He’s your brother. You would never turn your back on him, not when his life’s at risk. And, frankly,” she stepped closer to him, reaching a hand to his cheek to wipe away a black streak painted on his skin, “I’d probably be right there with you because you’re  _ my _ partner.” 

Seth wrapped his fingers around her wrist, leaning into her palm. “I just want to give you a home, Kate. I want to deserve you and Rose.”

“Home is where you are, Seth. It’s where Richie is, where Scott is—it’s here, as one big mess that somehow is everything we need.”

He put his right hand on her waist, slowly pulling her to him. With one deep look into her emerald eyes, he leaned in and kissed her. For two months and three days he had been waiting for this fucking moment, hoping with everything he had that she would come back to him. For years Seth did not know where he belonged, but with Kate he never once doubted it was beside her. She was everything beautiful he had forsaken for not thinking himself worthy of having. Now she was here, in his arms, warm, radiant, smelling like vanilla and home.

He would never let her go again.

“We might need to move out of Eddie’s,” she whispered over his lips after pulling away, her arms around his neck. “He won’t appreciate crying in the middle of the night.”

“Crying is not exactly what I have planned for you, princess. More like screaming in pleasure—” She smacked his chest and he grinned. “Rose having nightmares?”

“No. Rose will be having a brother or sister in seven months,” she told him.

Nothing would ever be as hilarious as Seth’s facial expression when Kate’s comment clicked together in his head. He gaped at her, fear and hyperventilation slowly surfacing from beneath his smug exterior. He looked down at her stomach, then up at her three times. 

“Well, shit. You have some potent little soldiers, brother,” Richie laughed from the doorway with Rose in his arms and Eddie grinning beside him (Scott was behind them, covering his ears,  _ ‘Don’t say that, man! That’s my sister!’ _ ).  “You had sex twice, and both times she got pregnant.”

“Richard, shut the hell up,” Seth hissed at him, annoyed, before he turned back to Kate, his expression shifting immediately. “And you, I fucking love you, Kate.”

She barely managed to gasp out an “I love you, too” before he wrapped his arms around her, lifting her off her feet to twirl her. 

“Hey, Clarabelle,” Richie looked at his niece, “Do you know what the baby will be?”

Eddie smacked Richie beside the head. “Zip it, jackass.”

Rose smiled hugely at them. Of course she knew. 

It would be two years later when Seth finally asked Kate to marry him.

The idea had been in his head since the first time he made love to her, but there had been a lot they still needed to figure out to add marriage to the mix. For a while, he even thought she was satisfied with what they had. And what they had was pretty fucking sweet: a two-story house with a massive backyard with a grill, porch swing, jungle gym, swing and slide set, apple and orange trees, and a garden that was the envy of their neighbors. They had inherited Uncle Eddie’s TV repair shop (expanding it to an auto body shop, too) when he decided to retire, a bar that was far more legal and respectable than Jacknife Jed’s ( _ ‘It’s not the fucking Ritz, but it’s respectable,’ _ Richie would argue), and a non-profit, secret organization that killed culebras ( _ ‘You two are aware that Richie and me are culebras, right? You’re giving Lola and the hunters money to potentially take us out, too,’ _ Scott bitterly pointed out after he met his girlfriend Freya, an eighteen-year old culebra Marlo was inclined to turn into ash).  

It was not just the material things they owned, it was also their family which they had been blessed with. Seth had Kate, the beautiful, kind, courageous, badass mother to his children whom he could still not believe loved him back when he was a true, unapologetic bastard eighty percent of the time. He had his reasons for existing, his children: eight year-old Rose who continued to be magic, but was growing up to be a striking, sharp girl true to the Gecko name, and the twins, two year-old Caleb and Silas who were mayhem and absolute bliss. Of course, there were also the producers of his headaches, but who made his family complete (mostly because Kate said so): Richie, still fucking savvy and arrogant (who ran the topmost drug cartel for his culebras, but still had time to be the uncle that shared way too fucking much knowledge on things he shouldn’t), Scott, still young and carefree (who played guitar in an unknown band, traveling with his hippie culebra girlfriend, but still showed up every month to spend time with his family), Eddie, still stubborn and grumpy as ever (who loved his grandchildren despite their unsustainable energy and their lack of appreciation for the classics), Santanico, still poised and travelling the world trying to find herself (who, with time, slowly opened up and let herself love and be loved by the children), and even the Gonzalezes, still united and righteous (who learned not to forgive the Gecko Brothers, but to see them as Kate’s family, too).

Seth was arguing with Richie on the perfect time each side of the steak needed on the grill when Kate walked out from the backdoor of their home, bringing out a round of drinks for their guests. She handed Rose and Billie their sodas, Caleb and Silas their sippy cups with juice, Freddie, Scott, and Santanico their beers, and Eddie and Margaret their flavored, dietary waters. 

Eddie frowned at the plastic bottle she offered. “I said Corona.”

“And I said you had to take better care of yourself, Eddie,” Kate replied with a tone that was similar to the one she used on her children when they misbehaved. “Doctor Ramirez told me all about your high blood pressure and cholesterol.” 

“That doctor doesn’t know shit, Katie-Cakes. I know my body. I’m telling you, I can have a cold one.”

With a sigh, Kate called out, “Seth, help me out here, please.”

“Damn it, Uncle Eddie, you ain’t ten. Take the water and she might let you have a slice of the apple pie she baked after you’ve eaten all your vegetables.”

Laughter echoed around the garden, making Kate roll her eyes and Eddie flip Seth the finger. 

“Gotta have you in top shape before we go to Mexico and leave you with the kids,” Richie contributed with a smirk as he carried the tray of steaks over to the food spread on the table. “You ain’t as young as you think, Uncle Eddie, and we can’t afford to put this trip off on account of culebras trying to dig up the fucking temple.”

With sharp nails, Santanico pinched Richie’s arm before putting her hands against Caleb’s ears, who was currently sat on her lap, giggling as she bounced him on her knees. “ _ Cállate,  _ Richard. Not in front of the children.” 

“It’ll be fine,” Kate said, giving Rose and Billie a reassuring smile. Both girls looked unconcerned about the trip the adults would be taking, especially since Rose knew her family of human defenders could take on anything. “Besides, Margie is just a few blocks away. She’ll help you with anything you need, Eddie.”

“I can take care of them just fine,” Eddie huffed. “I raised Seth and Richie, didn’t I?”

Freddie choked on his beer when he laughed. “There you go, Kate. Your kids will be robbing banks by the time we come back.”

At that, Rose did appear bewildered. When none of the adults seemed inclined on elaborating what the inside joke was, she said, “Mama, you do remember that I’m going to Diego’s birthday party the day you leave, right?”

Seth frowned disapprovingly as he took a seat beside Kate. Silas, who had been playing with his legos, found his way over to him, demanding to be picked up. “Is this the little twerp that walks her home from school?”

“Seth—”

“The same one that got her that bracelet for Christmas?” Richie interjected past Kate’s would-be warning, his brows furrowing in dislike, too. “Billie, how are you on kicking some little punk’s ass? I’ll pay you.”

Before Billie could tell Richie that she was, in fact, perfectly able to even kick a grown man’s ass at age ten (courtesy of karate lessons and her dad’s training), Kate’s scowl made her take a long drink from her soda can, averting her eyes.

“Rose is  _ eight _ . There’s no need for either of you to be ridiculously jealous and overprotective,” she reminded them. “And she can be friends with whoever she wants, that includes boys.”

“Kate’s right,” Scott said, beginning to smirk as he took a sip of his beer. “Worry when she’s a teenager and some prick wants to take her to Mexico for seven months of Bonnie and Clyde escapades.” 

Scott was lucky Silas was in Seth’s arms, or he would have thrown a knife straight into his eye. 

“That’s enough,” Eddie cut in with a grunt. “Let’s eat before we all are forced to hear how Mr. and Mrs. Gecko came to be.”

“She isn’t a Gecko, though,” Scott added.

“She could be,” the words slipped out of Seth’s mouth before he could stop them. He thought them, of course; they were always in the back of his head. Just like the engagement ring he kept in the tool box in the garage. One day he wanted to give it to her; he had it all planned out, actually, down to the wine they would drink, but nothing about Seth and Kate ever happened traditionally. They came from different points in life, one darkness and one light, a devil and an angel, but somehow it was fucking destined. They had never been fancy, candlelit dinners with soft harps and dim lights—they were this, gathered with their children and their loved ones, classic rock playing from a bluetooth device, two fold-out tables pushed together, fairy lights Seth objected on hanging up, but was suckered into it when Rose pouted, and the moon overhead because the sun could kill some of their relatives.

All eyes were on Seth.

He tried to reach for his own beer, but Silas grabbed his forearm, always intrigued by the inked flames on his father’s skin. Seth turned to Kate. “I don’t really have pretty words, princess, but I do wanna marry you. I’ve wanted to for a long time now.”

Tears glazed over Kate’s emerald eyes, but she still laughed softly despite the sentiment. “I know,” she said, “I found the ring last year when the twins got into your tool box.”

“You never said anything.”

“I didn’t want to take away the chance of you asking me,” Kate said, but refrained from adding that Margaret was the one who forced her not to bring it up so she could let herself be surprised. 

Seth grinned. “Will you marry me, then, Fuller?”

“Any time, any place, Gecko,” she returned, leaning in from her seat to kiss him.

They only managed a few seconds of melting into each other before Silas protested being suffocated by his parents.

With a _ ding, ding, ding _ caused by his fork tapping his plate, Richie stood, raising his beer. “Second time’s the charm, they say. So here’s to the future Mrs. Gecko. One that I actually fucking like.”

Seth passed Silas off to Eddie so he could kill Richie, but Kate held his hand, stopping him from lunging forward with his steak knife. Instead, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him hard, uncaring for the noises of protest and mock disgust their family made behind them.

They had been to hell and back a thousand times to forsake God and paradise, but Kate believed in heaven again. Maybe pearly white gates did exist somewhere beyond the clouds, or a castle on the sun awaited with all the souls that had come and gone, but her version of heaven was this. It was her mismatched family covered in scars that did not make them any less whole, but rather unbreakable. Heaven was waking up beside Seth, wrapped in his arms with a whispered  _ I love you _ in her ear before their children invaded their room with their laughter and blinding light. 

This, right here and right now, was what Kate believed in. And it was all she would ever need. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here we have it, el fin. I really hope you like how it ended. And thank you so much for reading my first attempt at the FDTD fandom. You were all so lovely.


	16. A Second Chance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! So, I promised someone a little insight on Seth during the time Kate (in Chapter 15) was in California and his thoughts/reaction to her being pregnant again. Sadly, there won't be any more chapters to this story or a sequel, but I hope this sorta fills in the gaps or eases any curiosity. I hope you like this. 
> 
> As always, thank you for being so awesome.

The only nightmare that consistently plagued Seth was his father. When he was a boy and his eyes would close, his subconscious relived the sheer panic and absolute fear his day had been previously submerged in because Ray Gecko believed in breaking his son to black and purple pieces in order to shape him into someone better—someone _different_. Seth could not escape the beatings even in his sleep; he saw himself tiny and fragile, curling up into a ball, arms over his head, as his dad kicked him (Richie always crying in the background). When they were taken in by Uncle Eddie, Seth’s nightmares were the flames devouring his father. Every night he saw their house go up in smoke, his father on the couch, burning (he could still smell the melting flesh, even after all these fucking years). Then those months in Mexico hopped up on some kind of narcotic, the odd times he managed sleep he saw his father pointing out how Richie lit him up, how Richie had always been a goddamn monster, but now he looked the part, too. In those dreams, Ray tried to tear his sons apart just as he’d done in real life, hoping to isolate Seth further into insanity (even if Richie _was_ a fucking culebra). Past drug problems and rejecting the idea that life was far more screwed up than he thought, Seth’s nightmares were about _becoming_ his father. Everything was set up for him to be; the drinking, the drugs, the stealing, being on the Most Wanted list, the lust for money, anger issues, the very fucking name of _Gecko_ —it was all there. His father had not left the criminal life even after he got married and had kids, he just inducted them into ruin, too. 

But Seth could not ruin Rose.

He was a fucking bastard, that was undeniable, but he loved his little girl. He loved her more than he ever thought he was capable of loving anything in this fucking planet. That love lived in his very core; it breathed on his skin, it was carved into his bones, it swam in his blood, and burned in his soul. The world was filled with gods and monsters, devils and angels, and he would die a thousand times than to let it ruin her like it ruined him. Rose deserved the chance of a beautiful, fairy-tale life Kate had given her all on her own. Seth was too fucking selfish to walk away from her life, even if in the back of his head he knew his daughter would be better off without the Geckos and their bullshit. Rose deserved someone she could be proud to call her father, someone she knew was willing to do absolutely anything so long as she smiled. 

Ray Gecko did not give up anything for his children, but Seth was  _ not _ his father. 

“What the hell do you mean you’re out?” Richie demanded as they entered Jacknife Jed’s from the haunted cellars beneath. “Didn’t you fucking hear Federico? The throne is ours. This is officially a Gecko Brothers joint.”

Seth snorted as he went directly to the bar. He had reached for a bottle of whiskey, but stopped himself from unscrewing the cap and taking a long gulp. He turned back to his brother. “Is it?” He gestured to the chaos Jed’s still was. Some culebras that came with the shithole (and were now loyal to their new Lords,  _ fucking apparently _ ) were attempting to fix up the place like they were going to open for a regular night of honky-tonk debauchery. 

“Obviously we need to fix things up,” Richie conceded, “but it’s business as usual. They’re spreading the word that Richie and Seth Gecko still expect their tribute.”

“No, Richard,” Seth grunted. “I don’t want any part of this. Not the fucking drugs, the girls, or the goddamn culebras. You know fucking why,” he stressed when his brother looked ready to argue with him. “It’s the same reason why you helped Santanico kill Malvado.  _ For Rose _ .”

Richie narrowed his eyes at Seth for a second, then turned to his pocket to fish out a lighter and a cigarette. 

When Seth married Vanessa, Richie knew she would push him out of his brother’s life (even without Santanico’s gift of seeing more than met the eye). She was jealous, possessive, always needing Seth’s attention every second of every day—and that’s just when they were dating. She had already decided there was no room for Richie in their life together as husband and wife. When that catastrophic relationship ended as soon as it had begun, the fear and resentment still stayed with Richie; one day Seth would make a home he would not be allowed into. Of course, destiny dealt the cards and it brought Kate to their lives. His brother fell for the damaged angel just as Richie had in a past life, and together they expanded a legacy that was far more important than they dared to accept. And Kate welcomed Richie home. She called him her family, loved him the only way she knows how to love, pure and unconditionally ( _ ‘True love is loving the unlovable. That doesn’t just include Scott, but you, too, Richie,’ _ she said to him when he asked if having Carlito’s lapdog around was a good idea). Richie could not let his brother and Kate lose their daughter—his niece, his little Clarabelle that performed ballet routines in her cow onesie just to see Richie laugh. 

Not to mention, statistically speaking, he knew he would still get the throne with Malvado gone (but Seth didn’t have to know that).

“Yeah, quit the tough guy act, asshole. I know you love my little girl. You gotta see that I can’t be involved in this anymore, man. I want to be someone fucking honest for once because that’s what Rose needs her father to be.”

“And Kate?”

Seth did not attempt to pretend he was indifferent to the name. The answer was obvious—of fucking course he wanted to be someone that was worthy of Kate.

“You know she wouldn’t ask you to give any of this up.”

“But it’s not what she deserves.” Richie could not contradict that. Both of them had screwed Kate’s life way too many times throughout the years, intentionally and not. They could not continue to ask her to compromise herself for them. No matter how much she loved them.

“So that’s it?” Richie asked after taking a long drag from his cigarette. “You walk away?”

His brother could be all the goddamn cold, calculating vampire he liked, but Seth could still see Richie—his odd, socially awkward, brilliant, asshole of a little brother beneath all of the fucking snake skin and fangs. He told Kate once everyone she loved was dead because he knew everyone  _ he  _ loved was dead, too, but he poisoned himself to forget the fact that it was not true. He had not lost his brother, just as Kate had not lost hers. But it was too fucking painful to accept that Richie had not only abandoned him, but became a goddamn monster. Something broke inside of Seth to see his little brother caught inside the shell of a demon. He wanted to rip Richie out of the fangs and scales, bring him back out to the real world, but this  _ was  _ the fucking real world. Richie was a culebra. And that culebra was still his Richie. Even at that exact moment, Seth could see the shadows of his little brother, frightened and anxious that he would walk out the door like everyone had already done.

“No,” Seth said with more sincerity he had used with him in a long time. “We’re fucking family, Richard. You wanna fuck shit up, shake down a few culebras, overthrow another goddamn Lord? I’m there.  _ Partners _ . But come on, brother, see why I gotta quit this.”

Richie took another drag before dropping his cigarette, crushing it with the toe of his polished shoe. “Yeah,” he said, “I do see. And I know you’ll make shit right for Rose and Kate.”

Seth slowly grinned, relief flashing in his dark eyes. “It’s not like you really wanted to share the throne, anyway.”

Richie smirked. “Shit was ordained, brother.”

“All of this is just a racket,” Seth reminded with a scoff.

“Maybe. But it’s  _ my  _ racket.”

From the second Kate jumped into the backseat of the car manned by Gonzalez and Scott, their daughter beside her, driving away from Jacknife Jed’s, Seth did not know how to give her the time she requested. In the past he dealt with her absence with drugs and cheap alcohol from dive bars all across Mexico, keeping him distracted, fucking  _ sedated _ . Now that he was clean, he spent the first two days driving along the stateline leading out of Texas, trying to push himself over so he could head straight for California and knock on her front door. As much as he would have liked to tell her he was not going anywhere without her, he understood  _ why _ she needed the time. Regardless of the twisted fury that had taken a hold of him when he saw Benito and Kate together, when he found out he had asked her to marry him so they could become a family, Seth knew Benito had earned it. It was not easy to accept that someone else had loved Kate as much as he did, that someone had come in and taken what was his, but the guy had given up his life for Kate and Rose. Seth owed the man nothing but undiluted respect. So he drove back to Eddie’s and instead called Scott up to spend three hours on the phone with his daughter, talking about absolutely anything she wanted. When it was time for her to go to bed, he hoped to hear Kate’s voice, but it was Scott who took the phone back and said, “Word around the streets is the culebras lost their second king. Freddie says you’ll be back to robbing banks in no time, but I’m betting on something different. Maybe like making a home for my sister and niece.”

Finding something different happened by total fucking accident—or maybe it was all Uncle Eddie’s doing. One minute Seth was contemplating his future (something he never had to do because being a fucking Gecko guaranteed a spot in the criminal world), and in the next he was fixing up an old Cadillac convertible for an associate of his uncle’s. He did not expect to get handed a wad of cash for his time, nor did he fucking agree to take the list of other associates that needed a good paint job, oil changes, new tires, tuning of the engine, or brakes replaced.

“I’m doing this for you,” Seth told Eddie with a frown. “You did not survive that fucking culebra attack just to get offed by some asshole who didn’t get his tires rotated.”

Uncle Eddie snorted in return, but smiled wide when he officially opened the garage of the repair shop for Seth’s honest-to-God day job.

A few days before Rose’s sixth birthday, after a client had picked up her lavish, over-the-top Range Rover that did not need any fixing despite her claims that she constantly heard an odd noise, rather she seemed to enjoy the sight of the mechanic (her words, delivered with a wink and a slip of her number written on a hundred dollar bill), Eddie found Seth pulling out the boxes organized in the back of the garage like he had hidden secrets inside of them he needed to recount.

“There was a ring,” Seth told him offhandedly as he continued to look through the bullshit Gecko memorabilia Eddie decided to keep in case his nephews ever got fucking sentimental about their undeniably crap-tastic past (because Eddie was real mushy like that). “Mom left it on the kitchen table the day she left.”

Eddie grunted as he took a seat on the leather rolling chair. He was still sore from that shard of metal he had been impaled with, and as much as he liked to pretend he was fucking Rocky Balboa, he was winded easily these days and found himself needing to sit to catch his breath. “The ring was lost when the house burned down,” he reminded. 

“Not their fucking wedding ring,” Seth retorted. “Why the hell would I want that? The thing is cursed. I got Kate her own ring. The one I’m looking for had roses engraved along the band. Mom used to say it was passed down her family line to all the daughters. I want it for mine.”

Eddie narrowed his eyes at his nephew. “What the hell do you mean you got Katie a ring? Jesus fucking Christ, boy. You really like walking down the aisle, don’t you?”

Seth looked up after he found an old silver jewelry box with the initials RMG (Rose Marie Gecko) inscribed in fancy cursive letters over the opening. He remembered the thing from his childhood; he remembered Uncle Eddie giving it to his mother for her birthday one year, he remembered his mother sitting at her vanity, pulling out pearl earrings from the velvet interior of the box, smiling at Seth through the reflection of the mirror (no happy glitter in her blue eyes), and he remembered his father using it to bash her across the cheek when she pushed him off Seth during one of his many drunken hazes. 

From the moment she walked out on them, Seth hated his mother. He blamed her for the darkness that stained the walls of their home, impossible to get out no matter how fucking hard he and Richie scrubbed to try and bring the light back in, the beatings that got worse, the rage that grew inside of him, and his brother’s looming desperation that would drive him to murder. He learned to erase her from his past, mind, and heart—and he thought he had, but like everything he refused to acknowledge, her memory resurfaced. Her name and her eyes lived in his little girl. For the first time in fucking years, Seth could think of her and not feel the need to demolish an entire town to deal with the open, bleeding wounds. She gave him scars that would never fade, but he forgave her (or was learning to). If his mother had been stronger—if his father had not been a piece of fucking shit, then maybe she would have gotten to know Rose, and his daughter would know her grandmother liked to sing old ballads in the mornings and classic rock in the evenings, that her favorite color was sunshine yellow, had a contagious laugh that made the room bubble, once had dreams of being a painter, like to build forts from white sheets and tell her boys about mythical worlds, how she knew the name to every star, climbed the tallest trees to catch the moon for her boys, and how she chased the monsters away...

Rose Marie Gecko suffered the tragedy of meeting a devil, but she had been a good woman caught in hell before she escaped it. Rose Gecko Fuller deserved to know that. 

“What the hell is it that you’re looking for, huh? One bad marriage and one backstabbing bitch would’ve put  _ me  _ off, kid, and I was in the war.”

“Home,” Seth murmured as he opened the jewelry box. He moved the dusted items around until he found the ring. Suffocating nostalgia filled his chest, stirring anger right along with it, too. He took a deep breath to settle it, closing the silver lid again. “I found home with her, Uncle Eddie. I know she deserves someone better, but I love her. I’ll fucking wait however long until I can make this right again.”

Eddie sighed, nodding once. He had seen Seth infatuated with a girl before, on the verge of fucking destruction like he could make it out untouched, but this was entirely different. Kate was entirely different. She brought out a side of Seth that was genuine, that came from deep within the place he locked away from prying eyes. He was not trying to destroy the world for her, he was trying to make it better so  _ she  _ was unharmed.

It was true fucking love.

“You ain’t gotta wait to make things right, Seth. You just gotta wait for Katie-Cakes to come home.”

There was one universal truth Seth Gecko never fucking questioned: he was a no good, goddamn coward.

Yeah, when it came to confronting gods and monsters he wouldn’t even bat a fucking eye. He would make it rain bullets like the apocalypse was coming from the end of his gun, he could push a knife into the heart of an enemy, demon or not, and remain unruffled by the blood and gore left behind. Time and time again he faced off against assholes twice his size and he brought them all down with only a few broken bones but his life intact. That’s who he was—Seth Gecko, motherfuckers. 

Enter Kate Fuller, a petite brunette with mesmerizing green eyes and the face of an angel, and Seth lost all of his fucking courage. Especially when it came to her giving him something fragile, life-changing, and overwhelmingly pure. 

“You sure?” Seth asked Kate for the tenth time as they had dinner in front of the television, watching an Al Pacino movie with Eddie giving commentary.

She rolled her eyes, but laughed as she swallowed a spoonful of strawberry ice cream. “Yes, I’m sure. Two months and something. I peed on a stick and had a blood test done at the clinic. Not to mention I haven’t had my period and my breasts are getting huge—ow, don’t poke them, Richie! They’re sensitive, too.”  

Seth kicked his brother’s knee, frowning at him before turning back to Kate. He thought the greatest surprise he could receive that day was her and Rose coming back to him, but she had announced she was once again pregnant. He felt the ground quake beneath his feet when he found out his one night stand with her created a beautiful little girl, but when she told him she was expecting at that very moment, Seth felt like the ground opened up and swallowed him whole. How the hell was he supposed to be a father? Sure, he already was for Rose, but Kate had molded her for almost six years before he came into her life, sparing her from his incompetence.

Rose touched his cheek gently, smiling reassuringly at him as she cuddled into his side liked she sensed his inner turmoil. It lasted until her bedtime, where she eagerly heard the story of the preacher’s daughter who had gone to a barren land to save a lost boy. In Seth’s new updated version, the boy did not lose the preacher’s daughter forever, but found her again after a few years, still shining bright like the stars in a galaxy bursting with color.

“Did they live happily ever after, Daddy?” she asked him.

“Yes, sweetheart,” Seth told her as he adjusted the blankets around her. “They did this time.”

Kate appeared at the entrance of the guest bedroom Eddie had cleared out for Rose. Seth was sitting beside the twin bed, the shadows of the night and light of the moon disguising him as he watched their daughter sleep. “Thinking about running?” 

A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth before he sighed. “Do you ever think Rose is perfect because everyone else but me raised her?”

Kate walked over to him, placing a hand on his shoulder to squeeze. “Rose is loved by so many people. Maybe it’s that light inside of her that makes everyone want to protect and care for her, but I also know how incomplete she has been. There was always a hole in her heart, and when she met you, you filled it. Don’t sell yourself short, Gecko. She has always needed you, just like the new baby will, too. Just like  _ I  _ do.”

Seth leaned in to press a kiss on Rose’s forehead before taking Kate’s hand, standing from the edge of the bed to lead her out of the room. Both gave one last protective glance over at their daughter before closing the door. With fingers clasped tightly together, they walked to his own bedroom. 

Nothing was said when Kate raised herself up to her toes, taking Seth’s mouth hostage with a searing kiss. Since her return earlier that day they had not gotten a moment alone, a chance to kiss and touch each other to erase the two months of absence. Despite the weeks that had passed drenched in grief, worry, and hurt, being together still felt like a song they will forever know the words to. Her body was molded for his; how she fit beneath his chin, how his fingers perfectly matched the indentations of her waist or the sides of her hips, and how her desire could only be stirred alive by the taste of his tongue. Everything Seth lacked returned when she was near; the love deep in his bones, something so profound it made his hands shake when he touched her, it made his heart bang against his chest, threatening to come out, a tenderness he never found himself capable of expressing, as much as he wanted nothing more than to devour her, he also needed to worship her carefully, centimeter by centimeter, making absolutely sure his attention on her skin was soft, and knowing he belonged beside her, that with her he was no longer a damaged devil, but a good man with a second chance.

When he had her naked, back pressed against the mattress of his bed, beautiful silver moonlight pouring in from the open window, Seth stopped his trail of kisses from between her thighs to her stomach. He was not sure if at two months he was supposed to notice a bump, the evidence that she was carrying his child, but he  _ felt  _ it. He felt the surge of absolute fear. The hands he placed on her hips slowly started pulling back, but she reached down to hold them in place. 

“When I found out about Rose,” Kate whispered to him, “I spent a week hiding from the world—hiding from that little being growing inside of me. I was so scared, Seth, I even thought about...I didn’t know I could be what she needed, but I knew I loved her. And I promise you that’s enough.”

She took his right hand, sliding it across to her abdomen. He felt his body freeze for a second, eyes locking on the flat expanse of her skin. Seth loved Rose with all of his being, but he was doing  _ this  _ for the first time. He was getting to experience the development of his child inside Kate’s womb, to be there for her, be her partner in life just as he was in the killing culebras side. It terrified him to think at any given moment of this life, this domesticated, purely blissful life away from all the crime and gore bullshit, that he would end up rotting away like his father had, bringing his family down with him. 

Yet, if the love burning in Kate’s eyes was anything to go by (as she wrapped her legs around his waist, laughing when she pressed her body tighter against him, earning a longing hiss from him), Seth knew he could be saved. And who was Kate Fuller but not his savior?

A month into their familial routine, they all embraced a truth they wished to ignore: once a vampire slayer, always a fucking vampire slayer. While Seth worked at his auto shop, fixing cars and dragging in oil stains on the carpet Scott was constantly made to machine-scrub, Kate working part-time shifts at a local clinic, Rose finishing kindergarten at her new school, still taking ballet classes after school (or mechanic courses if Seth picked her up, or natural science lessons if her Uncle Richie picked her up, or experiencing sugar comas if her Uncle Scott picked her up, or playing chess at the park with her Grandpa Eddie and his friends if he picked her up), Freddie had jumped back into his inescapable position of peacekeeper. Kate had gotten word from the hunters that he had not checked in when he entered Alabama after chasing a nest there. Lola was attempting to get a hold of a nearby hunter base in the area, but Kate and the Geckos were closest to location. Even at three months pregnant, Kate filled a bag with stakes and guns, slung a crossbow over her shoulder, and left the state to find Freddie (Seth and Richie arguing with her the entire drive there). Once they recovered Freddie, they were back in business. Again.

They encountered several obstacles in the following few months (fucking naturally, because culebras didn’t take fucking vacation days, the bastards), and Seth learned—just as he had always known, actually—that Kate could not be told what to do. She fought alongside him, partners to the fucking end, no matter how many times he yelled, persuaded, or begged her to stay behind. When fire and determination flashed in her emerald eyes, he was often torn between ravaging her body with his constant desire for her (she was undeniably alluring when she was being a badass), or condemn her fucking loyalty to the human race. 

Thankfully, at six months pregnant, she came to her senses when she could no longer see her toes.

“Oh God,” she sighed with exasperation when her belly had accidentally knocked Rose down. “I’m so sorry, baby.” Her daughter giggled when her mother outstretched her hand, trying to help her back up, but she could not bend even down to a good angle. 

“It’s okay, I’ve got it,” Seth said as he, Richie, and Scott crossed into the kitchen of the new Gecko/Fuller household, saving the day as usual when he swooped Rose up in his arms, pressing a giant kiss to her left cheek before putting her down to her feet. “Where are you going, baby girl?” he then asked when Rose grabbed the two brown paper bags on the counter her Uncle Scott and Richie were starting to rummage through. 

“Grandpa Eddie and me are gonna see the tanks they used in the Vietnam War. He said the museum has in display the one he was in.”

“He was  _ not  _ in the war. Don’t let him lie to you, Clarabelle. He was pickpocketing unsuspecting rich folks in the daytime and line dancing at night. I’ve seen the pictures,” Richie reminded.

“Leave him alone, man. It’s his new pickup line. Let him get ladies his own way,” Scott defended, Seth agreeing in the background as he fetched a beer out of the fridge. 

He opened the cap, but halted taking a drink when he said, “Kinda hurt you rather go be Eddie’s mascot to lure grandmas than say goodbye to your old man and uncle, sweetheart.”

Rose smiled at her father. “You’ll be back, Daddy. The Sun People are protecting you.” She went to hug him again, squeezing tight before turning to Richie to embrace his knees as he patted her head with a chuckle. “Tell my  _ nino _ Freddie I said hi!” was all she said as she raced out the kitchen, Eddie’s unmistakable, impatient honking coming from the outside.

Kate groaned again when she tried to reach for her cell phone that fell to the floor along with Rose. “Seth?” she called bitterly. 

He picked up the device with a smile that she did not return. “What’s wrong, Kate?”

“ _ This _ ,” she pointed to her stomach. “I’m so huge! And I still have three more months left. I swear, this baby thinks my womb is up for expansion. It’s not.”

“Leave it to a Gecko to want more than they can have,” Scott said with a laugh Richie scoffed at. 

“Hey, listen to me, Princess, you’re absolutely fucking stunning, and you’ve got this pregnancy under control.”

“That’s just your male ego, brother,” Richie pointed out, even if he, too, hovered around Kate like she was the holy, guiding light out of hell, “because she’s lugging around the product of your fertility. It’s all basic biology.”

Seth smirked, flashing the smug glint in his eyes. Scott glared at this. “Shut the fuck up,” he warned, “that’s my sister.”

“I wasn’t saying anything, kid.”

“You didn’t have to, asshole,” Scott returned with a grunt, jumping off the counter, stealing Seth’s open beer from his hands before heading out of the kitchen.

“That’ll teach him to open doors without knocking,” Seth added, not dropping his smirk as he crouched slightly to place a kiss on Kate’s swollen stomach before standing upright, placing hands on her waist. “We’ll be back tomorrow.”

“You better,” Kate warned. “All three of you. If you don’t, I will go to the underworld and kill you myself before bringing you back here.”

“Didn’t you hear our daughter? The Sun People have our backs.” When Kate smacked his chest, still easily upset with the magic juju that lived inside Rose, Seth conceded immediately with a “Yes, ma’am,” before kissing her passionately. 

“Do I get one, too?” Richie asked, blue eyes bright with mischief when the two pulled away. 

Kate made a disagreeing noise at this, but opened her arms out for Richie. She hugged him tightly. “Please be safe. This family isn’t complete until you’re all back here.”

Several times throughout Kate’s pregnancy they all assumed her water would break kicking culebras out of Jacknife Jed’s who tried to feed on the guests, when she accompanied Scott to meet a dealer for weapons Richie would need for his next trip to Mexico ( _ ‘I’m just going to make sure we aren’t being ripped off, Seth. It’s not like I’m going to go all Buffy while eight months pregnant’ _ ), or when they were forced to entertain a representative of a Lord who wanted to know how Malvado’s successors were handling the tribute for the Nine ( _ ‘Listen here, Nosferatu, I ain’t no fucking Dracula King. Got it? Tell your boss my brother’s got the numbers. You take it up with him. Now, unless you want to end up a pile of ash, step away from my partner and get the hell out of my shop’ _ ). No, how she went into labor was real normal, fucking mundane compared to the lives they lived in the fight against gods and monsters. 

Thinking back to it, Seth would really like to punch himself in the fucking face for how inept he had been in that moment—how inept all of them had been, actually. Richie lost his ability to be normal (whatever fucking normal was for him), so he started spewing nonsense about labor, giving graphic, technical terms of what happened to a female’s body, and the procedure of c-sections, all while his blue eyes frayed with panic, too. Eddie asked to stop by a convenience store to buy a bottle of Jack Daniels because his nerves were shot ( _ ‘I was in the war!’ _ he shouted just as someone else said,  _ ‘No you fucking weren’t!’ _ ), and Scott could not handle his sister paling from the pain that he even started praying like his old God could bring upon immediate relief. 

The long-awaited moment came at Rose’s ballet recital. The whole family had gotten together to see her pirouette ( _ ‘I can’t believe you even know what that is, Seth’ _ ) in her pretty pink tutu and purple butterfly wings, face painted with shades of blue and drenched in gold glitter (Santanico had even shown up, too, after having received a personal, hand-written invitation from Rose to wherever the hell she was). She was in the midst of her grand jete when Kate gripped her stomach, heaving at the sudden bolt of pain that shot up her spine. Seth had not noticed since he and Richie were fighting over the filming angle of the recital, but Rose had leaped off the stage, exclaiming, “Daddy! The babies are coming!”

Seth looked down to find Kate puffing for air, teeth gritted, cheeks red, and he felt like joining her, rolling into a fetal position when nervous dread took over him. They had gone over their plan of action several times to prepare for this moment, but nothing was coming to him. It was fucking Santanico who put an arm around Kate’s shoulder, lifting her up from her seat, yelling, “ _ Andale cabrónes. _ To the hospital.”

He was allowed into the delivery room after Kate demanded that he be let in when he started threatening the staff (he could hear her screaming from the waiting room, too fucking far along to give her an epidural, forcing her to endure the contractions and give birth the old school way). Eddie and Scott warned him against facing that gruesome, bloody sight, but the thought of Kate writhing in pain was enough to bring out the courageous side of Seth. After all, if there was anyone he would look fear in the eye for, it was her. Fucking always. 

Seth and Kate had mutually decided to keep the gender of the baby a surprise upon Rose’s insistence; so when she gave her last push, a thick sheet of sweat over her skin, tears down her cheeks, they were overwhelmed with bliss to know she had given birth to a healthy baby boy. 

Seth refused to leave his place beside Kate, clutching with all his might to her hand while his arm was wrapped around her shoulders for moral support, allowing him to whisper words of encouragement ( _ ‘Push, Princess.  _ Push _. Look at me, I fucking love you, Kate. You’re doing great. One more push, babe.’ _ ), but in the distance they both watched the nurse clean their son and wrap him in blue. The sensation that flooded Seth when their baby was placed in Kate’s arms, all pink and blinking back beautiful, unmistakable green eyes at them, he knew what love at first sight was. 

Kate let out a scream, her hold on their child loosening when the doctor was back to pulling her legs apart. 

“What the hell is going on, Doc?” hissed Seth when the same nurse that handed Kate the baby took him away, her crying loud, echoing off the walls of the hospital room when pain drowned her red features. 

“There’s one more baby,” the doctor informed them. “You are expecting twins.”

Eight minutes after Caleb Gecko was brought into the world, Silas Gecko followed pursuit, his eyes just as dark and alluring as Seth’s. 

“Are we gonna talk about Kate giving birth to  _ twins _ ?” Richie said to Santanico when they were allowed into Kate’s room an hour later to meet the new babies, both hanging back from being completely immersed in the moment. “The prophecy said the Mayan Twins would destroy the Nine with the help of the Light. The entire bloodline is destined to wreak some fucking havoc on culebras.”

Santanico narrowed her brown eyes at Richie before turning back to the scene ahead. Rose was cuddled against her mother’s side, both awestruck over Silas as Seth clung on to little Caleb, Eddie and Scott trying to get a better look over his shoulder. Kate and Seth met each other’s gaze when the babies yawned in unison; the love that poured out of them filled the room like a tsunami had burst the walls. 

This was everything life should be. 

After hundreds of years of life, Santanico knew there was a dusk and there was a dawn. For every devil there was an angel. It was foolish to think the world could be rid of the shadows caused by the moon, but it never obscured the beauty of the sun. Kate had been torn away from her fabricated daydream as a preacher’s daughter, destined alike every person they met along the way to embrace reality, but she found the good in the bad. She allowed herself to love even the unlovable, and for that the Gods rewarded her. They rewarded all of them with these new beginnings. 

“I’ve told you once before, the Nine and their empire will burn. And when that moment comes, Richard, will you abandon the throne for your family?”

Richie clocked in on Seth pressing a tender kiss on his son’s forehead before looking up to meet his eyes. He said, “Get over here, asshole. Meet your nephews,” just as Kate called out, “Kisa, come hold the baby.”

“It’s just a racket, anyway,” he told her, his choice unquestionable, before they joined their mismatched family in celebrating the birth of a new generation. 


End file.
